Black Tuna
This is a teriyaki-style marinade that turns the
outside of the meat almost black when you fry it.
Sometimes. But that is not the point. It tastes good,
and over the past few weeks has become my staple
marinade for meats of all kinds. It also has the
great advantage of being very easy and quick (as long
as you remember to marinade it in advance) to prepare.
Everyone will get tired of it soon, and start
complaining that I always feed them the same thing
and then it will be time for a change.
As always, get your tuna fresh, preferably by
trolling for it yourself, beating off the sharks as
you gaff it onto the boat. Or hang around outside
Trevor the tuna scientist's office on a fine sunny
morning when he arrives for work with an esky full of
excess from the dawn "tagging exercise".
You could even go down to the supermarket, but the
fish there is usually weary and limp after being laid
for a couple of days to oxidise on a cold slab, and
is only good for feeding to people who have never
tasted fresh fish before (such as the majority of the
inhabitants of the United Kingdom). Poor old poms.
Ingredients
- Enough tuna steak/fillet/whatever to line the
insides of 3 or 4 people;
- Dash (about a teaspoon) of sweet mint sauce
or mint jelly (you can use a commercial mint
sauce if you don't have access to an aged
relative who spends 12 hours a day making the
stuff);
- Generous dash of soy sauce (enough to make
sure everything gets well coated). Decent
ordinary soy sauce if you have used a sweet
mint sauce, or sweet soy sauce if you have
used unsweetened mint sauce. The idea is to
have some sugar in the marinade, which will
caramelise on the outside of the meat when
you fry/grill it, but not so much that it
gets candied;
- Small dash of sesame seed oil. If you live in
the tropics keep this in the fridge, because
it can go rancid remarkably quickly. When
fresh, a little can go a long way, so don't
overdo it. Another hint about sesame oil is
that it doesn't have the same taste if cooked
hard, so I tend to use it at the last minute,
or in uncooked applications like salads, and
marinades for meat cooked rare;
- Chilli to taste (minced or chopped fresh, or
pickled, or sauce)
- Pinch of patented dried onion-based condiment
powder (see below)
- A few cumin and caraway seeds (when mixed in
the marinade they stick to the outside of the
meat and create an interesting texture of
flavours when occasionally bitten into)
- Optionally: chopped garnish herbs: Coriander,
Fenugreek, Parsley or Mint, depending on mood,
but this thing tastes strongly enough without
needing garnish.
Mix everything apart from the garnish together in
a plastic or ceramic bowl & leave for as long as
you want. If you want to taste the fish itself, then
restrict the soak to an hour, but if you want to
liven up the flavour of a particularly bland fish
then soak for up to 24 hours (very useful for chicken
breasts as well).
Drain the marinade from the fish, put some butter
and/or olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and, not
to put too fine a point on it, fry the fish. Reserve
the drained marinade. The frying pan needs to be hot,
since the aim is to well-cook the outside, whilst not
overcooking the centre. It also helps if the tuna
steaks are of a certain thickness, that can only be
decided depending on the heat of your burner and the
thickness of your frying pan etc. Slices of tuna
around 2cm in thickness are optimum in my kitchen for
keeping the inside just turning whilst the outside of
the fish is done.
The soy sauce and the caramelising effect of the
sugar in the marinade should quickly conspire to
darken the outside of the meat, but don't worry if it
doesn't go black. It's no big deal. When done (cut a
bit in half to check), whip the tuna out onto a plate
and pour the reserved marinade into the pan to reduce
it, and soak up the cooking juices. This usually only
needs bringing to the boil, but it depends on how
much sauce & sugar is in the mix.
Serve the individual portions of tuna sliced in
half with a dribble of hot marinade as sauce. This is
pretty strong-tasting and salty, so don't overdo it.
The idea is to provide a sharp contrast, not an all-pervading
covering. Garnish if desired & serve with salad.
Or whatever.
Tim Adams
Noumea 2002
Spiced onion condiment powder
I keep the following mixture in a jar in the spice-rack
as a condiment for several purposes:
- 2 tablespoons of dried onion (bought in bulk
as an aid to preparing curries)
- 1 teaspoon of dry fried garlic (fried garlic
has a different aroma from fresh garlic)
- 0.5 teaspoon each of mustard seeds and of
cumin (or fennel or caraway) seeds
- 2 or 3 fenugreek seeds
- pinch salt
Throw the lot into a coffee or spice grinder and
reduce to a granular powder.
Adapted from Blind Freddie's Guide to
Fishery Management (Tim Adams: in prep) .
