Tuna Tartare

Another Team AJ/Soupereasy Project

This is a delicious and easy version of tuna tartare. We used two flash frozen sushi-grade AHI tuna steaks from Costco that turned out to be wonderful. We were initially a bit worried by the brownish shade of the frozen steaks but they pinked up a bit as they thawed and the taste was first rate. The diced raw tuna is tossed with avocado, scallions, jalapeno, and some toasted sesame seeds. Then the dressing (soy sauce, wasabi, tabasco or other hot pepper sauce, some olive oil, and some lime zest and juice) is mixed up and added. Season to taste. Then into the fridge for an hour.

We made no changes other than using a lemon rather than a lime and that had to do with the fact that neither of us much cared for the quality of the last remaining lime. We also used wasabi paste rather than powder. We served on thin slices of bread. Wonderful flavors perfectly balanced. High five to the Contesssa.

We found that the dish was best right after that hour in the fridge. We both kept some to serve as a dinner appetizer and the flavors definitely muddied with the passage of a few hours.

Our original plan for the day was to compare two tuna tartares but I couldn't find a version of the one I wanted (from Lidia Bastianich's NYC restaurant Felidia -- my husband says it is the best tuna tartare he has ever eaten) so we made a last minute decision to sear the remaining tuna steak and serve it with a plum salsa from Fine Cooking (reviewed separately).

We got the idea from the Le Bernadin cookbook On the Line which pairs a seared tuna and a tuna tartare in one dish. We couldn't get the yuzu juice the Le Bernadin recipe called for so we just decided to run with the idea of two different approaches to preparing tuna. And, as it turned out, the dishes were very different from one another but together made an exceptional lunch.