We’re all eating at home more these days. Saves money, of course, but it’s a good thing for other reasons, too. Not only is it easier to make healthier food choices, the ability to share an evening with friends is far less restricted. It’s possible to relax and not worry about holding up some waiter’s need to get you cleared out and another group of customers hustled through. The food is better in a casual setting and it’s enjoyed more. Why don’t we do it this way more often?!
Recently, I was invited by friends to share a meal with them and other friends and family of theirs. One of the party had been given sashimi grade tuna steaks by yet another friend. The folks I was visiting prepared the meal and the host grilled them.
My friends assembled these different marinade/sauces:
• soy with wasabi paste
• champagne and ginger with saffron
• sesame seed and orange flavored soy
The only commercial preparation they used was Silver Springs Mango Wasabi Sauce, which was really excellent. I wasn’t able to find an Amazon link for it, but if you can’t find it in your bricks and mortar store, you might check out one of these:
• Silver Springs Mustard, Jalapeno, 9.5-Ounce Squeeze Bottles (Pack of 9)
• Silver Springs Mustard, Chipotle, 9.5-Ounce Squeeze Bottles (Pack of 9)
• Silver Springs Honey Mustard, 10.25-Ounce Squeeze Bottles (Pack of 9)
If you don’t live where you can get tuna, and you want to experiment with those marinade ideas, you can order sashimi grade tuna–fresh, never frozen–direct from Amazon.
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Similarly, here’s links for wasabi paste, saffron, and sesame seeds:
• Wasabi Paste, in Tubes (3)
• Spanish Saffron Acrylic Box
• sesame seeds freshly packed in large jars
As I said in my last post, my preferred method of fish preparation is blackened, but I also enjoy seared fish steak (and poached, and broiled, and baked, and fried, and…).
The heavy cast iron cooking surface used for blackening is the same used for searing, which is the technique used for the tuna steaks in this meal. For either method of cooking, use a heavy, cast-iron blackening skillet or griddle such as the Lodge Logic 12-Inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet
They’d prepared several different marinade/sauces and, after letting the tuna steaks marinate for a while, they cooked the different tuna steaks to various degrees of doneness (rare to medium rare only–more done is not recommended). Then the steaks were topped with their respective sauces and all cut into smaller pieces to which we helped ourselves, tapas fashion (tapas are a collection of Spanish appetizers which together form a meal—common in Tampa Bay area): serving ourselves a little of this preparation, a little of that preparation, and a little of another. I’d never seen it done that way before and I really liked it. If you think about it, it’s perfectly logical. Why limit yourself to just one method of preparing the entree? This gave the meal a lot of variety and everyone got to try some of each sauce. In addition to the tuna steaks there was a very nice okra-tomato angel hair pasta dish and a broccoli slaw salad with toasted, crumbled ramen noodles.
I’ll continue to eat out, of course, and I’ll definitely continue to document my favorite restaurants here. But, I’m going to start including descriptions of special meals with friends…definitely one of life’s delights.
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