Searing of the Sea

New Years Eve is the perfect night for a special (aka expensive) dinner so hence the next recipe. Blackened Tuna Steak. First of all, I LOVE fish but have only tried tuna steak once. I ordered it at a restaurant and realized it was served rare. This freaked me out and I immediately gave it to Symon who LOVED it even though he says he doesn't really like fish (or at least the smell of fish). I was hesitant to make this recipe and have been putting it off for a week. I finally went to AJ's (alone this time without kids) to buy the tuna steaks. $24.99 per lb!!!!!!! Yikes. This was more expensive than the duck. Oh well, hence new years eve. I got 2 steaks, one small and one large and was on my way. This fish is a beautiful red color which makes it just look expensive. I wonder if it is that expensive in Monterey? First I again dried the fish and let it sit to room temperature prior to searing. Don't you think they look pretty?

Next was to make the seasoning to create the "blackened" part of the steak. Talk about LOTS of spices. AB (Alton Brown) talks about how the concept of "blackened" most likely came from the south (Cajun) where someone probably burned something and then started the trend. None the less, I needed a lot of ingredients for this blackened recipe as seen here.

I combined all of the spices into a rub seen here.

Coated the steaks with a little of canola oil and then covered the steaks with the rub.

Ok, time for the cast iron skillet again. At this point I would like to give hail to the cast iron skillet. The BEST pan that I have. I LOVE IT!!!! I have been using it more and more and I think everyone should have one of these. I am sure our grandmother and great grandmothers used them exclusively and so therefore, GET ONE!!!! Ok, back to the cooking. The instructions state to place the pan on high heat until a drop of water jumps but not sizzles. What? Symon and I both could not figure out what the heck that meant so we just let it cook for 1-2 minutes and then put the canola oil in the pan and the placed the steak in the pan for searing!!! Now, if you have had tuna steak before, you know that the outside of the steak is cooked but the middle is cooked rare (warm) but still raw. Of course this makes it a perfect ingredient for searing. First side down in the pan for 2 minutes and then again on the other side. Just to let you know, even though this was an expensive ingredient, I was not afraid or hesitant. This just goes to show if you keep trying, cooking does get more enjoyable and not so stressful. As you can see below, we definitely got the blackened effect but we warned, this is NOT burnt. I tasted it, and it wasn't. And I hate burn stuff so I know.

After cooking on both sides, I removed and let sit for 2 minutes with foil simply because I was afraid of the rare idea. None the less as seen below, it was not rare but well done but not burnt. It looked like a steak (beef) with a grayish pink tinge. I was getting excited to eat.

And here is the finished plate served with green beans and rice. And if you were wondering, I made mac and cheese with veggies for the kiddos. I did give a bite to Reagan who did eat it but then spit it out which I suspect was because of the spiciness of it.

Results: AWESOME but Spicy. Symon loved it and said it was the best thing I have made yet. I was surprised because I made a mean skirt steak the second time if you recall. His words were, "this is awesome. I love the crunch (i am thinking the crust of the fish) and if were rich I would eat this all the time". I will warn you that the blackened crust does have a kick and I had to ditch the glass of wine for water during dinner. Symon proceeded to touch his eye after eating and also can attest to the spiciness.

Things I learned:

1. Blackened does NOT mean burnt taste

2. Tuna is awesome, but expensive

3. Next time I might get up enough guts to make it rare

As a side note, Santa brought me 2 new Alton Brown cook books so many more blogs to come. I also want to say that after having Ryan, I can not eat canned tuna because of the smell but this is nothing like that so for all you can tuna haters out there, give ahi tuna a try. It is very good.