My Favorite Simple Grilled Tuna Steaks

 

I have a few favorite methods of seasoning tuna for grilling. Several come from my beloved  chef Pierre Franey's classic book Cuisine Rapide. One version uses grated ginger, paprika, cumin and lemon juice.  Another with thyme, garlic, lemon juice and rind is drizzled with melted butter and the marinade. 

All go well with a simple tomato and herb salad. 

However, my favorite is the simplest of all, presented here. 

Grilled Tuna Steaks

     4 tuna steaks, 1 inch thick. Approx. 2.5 pounds

     8 Fresh thyme sprigs

     1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

     Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

     Olive oil

     1. Sprinkle both sides of tuna with salt, pepper and pepper flakes. Drizzle olive oil over steaks.

     2. Press thyme sprigs onto steaks. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temp for 15-20 minutes. 

     3. Grill over high heat for 2 minutes per side, leaving thyme sprigs on the steaks.

     4. Slice thinly and serve wth tomato salad or a vinaigrette for dipping. 

Grilling in Houston in December - Whole Salmon and Salmon Skin Cracklins

Party for my golf buddies and families. I just did the grilling:

-          Grilled Whole Salmon Fillets stuffed (yes stuffed) with Dill

-          Crispy Salmon Skin Cracklin’s

-          Provencal Butterflied Leg of Lamb

-          Ribs, Ribs, Ribs…..

Herbal Harvest

It never really is fall in Houston; it gets less hot, fog shows up more often and a couple trees change color and drop leaves. The less hot part is what we really savor around here after 4-6 months of blistering heat. One of the great side effects of our extreme weather is that we end up with pretty robust herbs. Our herb garden is active almost year round, filled with sage, oregano, chives, rosemary, thyme, basil, lavendar, parsely, mint, cilantro and bay. Maybe a couple more are out there I didn't remember.

With the weather breaking, we had this menu last night to celebrate my sister and niece visiting from Chicago.

• Goat cheese with olives, thyme and lemon
• Roasted eggplant with capers and mint viniagrette
• Grilled herbed chicken (grilled plain chicken for my picky kids)
  
• Haricot vert, roasted peppers and capers in viniagrette
• Fingerling potatoes with garlic and oregano
• Mascarpone filled cake with sherried rasperries and blackberries
• Update: Green Grape Sangria - I forgot about one of the crowd favorites!
  

Most of these recipes came from or were adapted from the July 2008 Gourmet magazine. However some recipes (sangria) do not appear to be online.

Winners:

• Goat cheese - simple, obvious, great proportions
• Eggplant - use the Batali technique of salting then pressing the liquids out of the eggplant slices and it's a winner.
  
• Cake was ultra simple and could be modified to many other effects. WAs pleased that I could add a dessert without having to invest any significant time.
  

Losers:

• None. But the chicken could have been more heavily herbed.
  

Another Tuna and Pasta Dinner

Well, Tuna was on sale this week, and Nora likes it alot, so I went back to an old favorite from Cuisine Rapide, and then did a variation also from CR for some vegetable and shrimp pasta.

• Grilled Tuna with Garlic, Lemon and Thyme, Cuisine Rapide
  
• Buccatini with Shrimp and Vegetables
  
• Marinated Grilled Vegetables - Mario Batali advertisement in May 2008 Gourmet
  

The pasta was nearly a one-pot dish, with Green Beans, Broccoli and this shrimp added in at the end. The sauce was derived from the somewhat dated, but awfully delicious, Cuisine Rapide cream sauce. From a base of sauteed garlic in oil, add finely cubed tomatos and cook them down, add herbs and cream. Using 2/3 C of cream in 1 pound of pasta does not make a rich, gooey cream sauce, so a) it's not that unhealthy and b) imagine whats going into the cream sauces in your favorite restaurant.


The Tuna is a solid standby dish. Marinate the tuna in olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic and thyme sprigs. Grill with as much thyme and garlic still adhered to the steaks.


More on those marinated vegetables sometime soon. They're to die for, but require a bit of an explanation. The first of which this is the ONLY recipe from an advertisement that I've ever made.

4th of July Menu

• No Knead Bread - New York Times, Nov 21, 2007 - Dr. Hertzberg's version
• Texas BBQ Brisket -Cook's Illustrated, Summer issue - about 4 years ago (I'll update)
• Pickled Cucumbers, Carrots and Zucchini - My own pickling mixture
• Pasta Salad with Tomatos, Olives and Herbs Cook's Illustrated, May/June 2008
• S'More Cheesecake with fresh berries - Bon Appetit, July 2008

Note: you may need a subscription to access the NYT link above.


We're heading into the holiday weekend, have invited a family over, but could end up on our own. Since it's the week before our big summer vacation, I'm resorting to tried and true recipes. The only new attempt will be the S'Mores Cheesecake. If the recipe didn't call for fresh berries I would have passed it by. But since it does, I paused and will give it a try. Since my kids (and Ms. Finn) are such giant s'mores fans, I know they'll like it. The recipe is available at epicurious.com, and 100% of the reviewers so far gave it a 4 out of 4 rating. We'll see.

The no knead bread has been a big hit with both adults and kids since I first ran across it in the New York Times about 6 months ago. But in addition to this version, I'm also going to make the 12-18 hour version that is cooked in a heavy enamel pot from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery, also published in the New York Times, but back in 2006. The downside seems to be the 12 hour rise time, but the upside is that it appears to be a larger loaf. I'll report back on this version as well.

Shrimp Charmoula, Fennel Carrot Salad, fresh bread

For a Sunday post-golf meal, I considered the February issue of Gourmet and it's North African menu. While I would have been interested in trying more dishes from the menu, such as whole wheat flat breads and clementines in ginger syrup, there was not time for that many dishes.

Since my father in law liked the NYT quick bread so much, I was set on making another batch before he left. The Shrimp Charmoula looked good, as did fennel and carrot salad. So the menu:

• Plate of cheeses and cured meats: manchego, sage derby, tuscan sausage
• Shrimp Charmoula - Gourmet 2/2008
• Fennel and Carrot Salad - Gourmet 2/2008
• NYT Quick Bread
  

The Charmoula differs from the lamb chops charmoula first published in Gourmet in the summer of 1999 (Ruth Reichl's first issue as editor). There are markedly fewer ground spices and a much larger quantity of aromatics - shallots and serranno pepper. I chose to add a little more garlic than the recipe, and it could tolerate quite a bit more. But I didn't notice at first that the shrimp is marinated after being cooked, not before. It's actually a better approach, as is grilling the shrimp instead of the instruction to boil it. So I just tossed the shrimp in oil, S&P, skewered them and grilled briefly. They were then tossed into the marinade which included sauteed shallot, pepper and garlic combined with oil, lemon juice, honey, cilantro, turmeric and paprika.

Very positive results, and this recipe can probably withstand a fair amount of fiddling with ingredient proportions and choices based on what you have on hand.

The Fennel and Carrot salad was labor intensive, in order to cut the fennel pieces in to very thin slivers. The mixture of balsamic vinegar and lemon juice should have created a nice playful viniagrette, but it was dominated by an overly generous portion of chopped olive. In the end, the olives dominated all the other flavors. Not a great payoff for having done so much fine prep work on the vegetables. However, I hold out hope for the use of these two ingredients, with adjustments to the seasonings.

Shrimp, Tuna, Zucchini and Porcini Pasta

We turned the corner late last week and returned to beautiful temperate southern weather - more than sufficient for comfortable evening grilling. I enjoyed spending time Saturday with my buddy Paul, a single dad who is embarking on learning how to cook. A future post will cover some of that discussion, where we reviewed basic pantry needs and kitchen equipment.

We reviewed a number of recipes from How to Cook Everything, since it includes so many good foundation recipes. You know, "basic tomato sauce", "the basics of cooking fish", and so on. A recipe for orrechiette with porcini caught my eye, and I dragged out a large container of dried porcini to show Paul. Another recipe we discussed was the spiced crust for grilled tuna that I stumbled across last summer.

All this lead to the following menu for Sunday:

• Spice crusted grilled tuna, Bon Appetit, August 2005
  
• Shrimp with rosemary garlic butter, Cuisine Rapide
  
• Grilled zucchini and nectarines, no recipe
  
• Orrechiette with porcini and garlic, How to Cook Everything, pp.
  

The spice mix for tuna was part of an attempt by Bon Appetit to create a near one-dish meal that includes couscous and sauteed vegetables. It also included a simplistic aioli. From that mish mash only the tuna seasoning stood out. The recipe called for 2 1/2 pounds of tuna steak, but a large quantity of spices is needed for that much tuna. So for about 1 1/2 pounds of tuna, brush olive oil on the steaks, and coat with a spice mixture composed of 2 t fennel, 1 t whole coriander, 1 t black peppercorns - lightly toasted then ground. Add 1 1/2 t of kosher salt to complete the rub.

The shrimp and sauce is a very solid recipe from Cuisine Rapide - THE GREATEST COOKBOOK EVER WRITTEN. Coat shrimp in olive oil, put on skewers and grill for 2-4 minutes. The sauce was approx 2 T butter, 2 T white wine, 1 T finely chopped rosemary, S&P - combine all and bring to boil. Take off heat and add 1 T chopped chives.

This sauce was used last night by Amy to dip her broccoli. Mmmmmm.

Zucchini were brushed with oil, S&P and grilled just until marks appears, about 2-4 minutes. Simultaneously a halved, pitted nectarine was brushed with oil and grilled. Each were chopped into large pieces, about 1" and tossed together. What it needed was a little more kick - maybe a little cayenne would have done the trick. If not, then cayenne, garlic and fresh thyme ought to work.

The last dish was based on the HTCE recipe for porcini pasta. However, in substituting reconstituted dried porcini for fresh (which are exceedingly hard to find), that recipe wouldn't t have had sufficient flavor. So I added garlic and shallots to the sauteed porcini. The sauce was completed by simply adding pasta cooking water and the porcini soakcing water to the hot pasta and vegetables, topped with a generous handful of chopped parsley.

Fennel and Coriander Crusted Tuna with Aioli

Best new recipe of the summer. Proportions of spices came from Bon Appetit, as I had a free subscription this summer. But rest of recipe was a wreck - trying for a one-pan meal with vegetables and couscous. Plus 1 1/2" tuna could not have been rare if cooked for 4 minutes a side. That's 1 1/2" ribeye cooking time, not tuna.

2 teaspoons fennel seed
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoons kosher salt

3 T mayonnaise
Zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoons fresh chives
2 garlic cloves

1 1/2 pounds tuna steaks (1 inch thick or more)
Olive oil

1. Prepare grill.
2. Toast fennel, coriander and pepper over medium heat, about 3 minutes. Grind spices and add salt.
3. Whisk mayonnaise, lemon juice, chives, and half of garlic in small bowl. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Store spice mixture airtight at room temperature. Cover and refrigerate lemon aioli.)
4. Coat tuna with olive oil. Sprinkle with spice mixture, press down. Sear tuna until. Rare center is about 2 minutes per side. Optional: refrigerate 1 hour, then cut into slices.
5. Serve with aioli.

Sunday Nov 11 - Mixed Grill and Pesto Pasta

No recipes, except proportions of pesto from How to Cook Everything, I think.

• Proscuitto / Mozzarella roll, fresh pesto
• Pesto and Fusilli
• Mixed grill: ribeye, hot Italian sausage, lemon-garlic shrimp

Nora loved the sausage, even though hot. Sausage is from what appears to be a small Italian maker, based in New Jersey, sold frozen at Spec's. Would prefer fresh but this is the only sausage in Houston that's similar in taste to the local Chicago Italian markets.