Tuna Steaks

Odysseus

Anyone got any suggestions on cooking tuna steaks, I have only eaten it when out in the past, but now there is a guy who delivers great fish coming to my estate, so I thought I would take advantage of it. Any suggestions welcome.

catho_monster

2 mins max each side.
Serve with a lime/lemon based salsa.
simple. pure.

Geordie_Girl

How fresh does he deliver them?

We buy ours from the fish stall in Temple Bar market, they're only ever a couple of hours out of the sea, so we normally don't cook them at all, we eat them as sashimi with just a soy, spring onion and ginger dipping sauce (homemade). Raw tuna as delicious and I think it's the best way of eating it.

If it's not REALLY fresh them give it a minute or two either side and serve it with a similar sauce over it or a sweet chilli sauce.

If it's been frozen then personally I'd make sure it's cooked right through. Unfortunately, in my opinion this kind of defeats the purpose of buying tuna steaks as they're best left completely raw or almost raw.

Odysseus

Cheers thank for the replies, they are frozen, a knid of bulk buying thing. Would placing them in the oven in foil for about 15 mins work?

Blub2k4

It should do yes, probably even a little long if they're fully defrosted.
make sure the foil is enveloped and a few minutes either side wont matter. Any of the above suggested seasonings all go nicely with tuna.

And I'm going to merge this with the tuna thread.

<changed my mind on moving this, the other thread is all after hours at the start and this is a specific prep question>

MadsL

Salad Nicoise...the only way to go with frozen tuna...only eat fresh as steaks. Frozen tuna has a bit too much 'bite' to it to eat as a big lump.

The Sweeper

Geordie_Girl wrote:

We buy ours from the fish stall in Temple Bar market, they're only ever a couple of hours out of the sea, so we normally don't cook them at all, we eat them as sashimi with just a soy, spring onion and ginger dipping sauce (homemade).

I'd strongly doubt the fresh tuna you get is only a couple of hours out of the sea. It's possibly a couple of hours off whatever supplier's van brought it in from the airport.

There are I think nine different species of tuna, but some of them get called the names of others depending where they're caught. They're mostly warm water fish, so there's no way what you're eating has been caught fresh from waters that Irish fishermen have legal access to. What you get in supermarkets is from the Indian Ocean, Pacific, Maldives - you can also get tuna in the east and west atlantic, black sea and mediterranean but it's not as easy as just picking something that swims reasonably close to home.

Big eye (listed as 'vulnerable') and bluefin tuna (listed as 'critically endangered') are over-fished at the moment, so you're better off aiming for fresh yellow fin if you can get it, rod and line caught from a regulated fishery. Yellow fin is also or long-line caught and netted by fishermen - but unless the long-method has been adapted to not have a high rate of by-catch of other fish, sharks and marine mammals then it's not the best option. (And netting just seems to wreck the place.)

Now days, most of the supermarket-packed fresh tuna is yellow fin, much is long-line caught from fisheries regulated to minimise by-catch. Some is even rod and line caught. Read the labels.

The northern bluefin is used most often in sushi, and is available around the Meditteranean, so perhaps that's what the fish monger is sourcing? Still, it's listed now as having critically endangered stock because it's slow to mature and reproduce (plus it's bloody expensive so perhaps it's not what he's stocking...)

There's more to eating fish these days than how to cook it - I'd say it's more important to pester your fish monger for information on sourcing than it is to pester your butcher about what's free range and what's organic.

Here's Greenpeace's list of what to eat and what to avoid in terms of fish - it makes for interesting reading.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/oceans/supermarkets/fish_list.cfm#tuna

Supermarkets are often listed as the bad guys, but they come under more pressure to source their stock from sustainable and well-managed fisheries than private fish mongers. Private fish mongers, like private butchers, have something of an undeserved reputation for unquestionable ethical standards specifically because they're not supermarkets, whereas the opposite may be true.

Blub2k4

They're actually line catching tuna off the Northern coast at the moment, I know it's sport fishermen at the moment but I reckon you'll have commercial fisheries targeting them shortly if not already.

Geordie girl is a little off on the time, the tuna is about 48 hours old when we get it off the guy in Temple Bar market, as far as I remember, I asked him the last time and it's slipped my mind again.

The Sweeper

Off the northern coast of what, Ireland? And if so, do you reckon it's northern bluefin and therefore a critically endangered stock?

Jimoslimos

I usually marinade the tuna in a sauce made from some honey, lime juice, chopped clove of garlic, chopped chilli and some coriander. Let it soak for about an hour or two before cooking on a hot frying pan for a couple of minutes both sides. Mmmm delicious

The only tuna I've ever eaten has been yellowfin so I'm interested to know is there much of a difference in taste between the different species. Not that I'd be that tempted to indulge myself in a fish that was on the critically endangered list (plus finances wouldn't allow it - for yellowfin its about stg£14 a kilo where I am)

CJhaughey

It is Illegal and will remain so for Irish fishermen to commercially catch and sell Bluefin tuna.
There will never be a commercial fishery for bluefin because Ireland does not have any quota for this species.
There is a limited sport fishery for this fish but it is operating under catch and release terms, if this is breached the result will probably be that the fishery is banned.
On the other hand there is a large fishery (and quota) for Albacore tuna which is caught in the Summer and Autumn by Irish, French and Spanish vessels.
It is caught to the south and west of Ireland and is a large fishery of around 17,000t per year (Irish quota)
Very unlikely that you will ever eat Bigeye or Bluefin in Ireland as they are simply to expensive for the limited markets here I know some of the low grade bluefin may be sent to London for the sashimi trade but any fish worthy of being called sashimi gets sent to Japan.
Longline fishing is too expensive for much of the mass produced Yellowfin and in fact most of the commonly eaten tunas are caught using purse seine nets.
These have a good record of little or no bycatch and in the Eastern Pacific where the whole dolphin safe thing started they have been using a technique called backdown where dolphins are allowed to escape from the net.

The Sweeper

The amount of different aspects you have to think about when buying fish are astounding.

On which note, doesn't albacore have a problem with mercury levels? Or is that everything?

Blub2k4

I catch my own fish now on the rod, takes away a lot of my concerns about provenance and handling.
The health aspects are still there but meh...can't think of everything.

CJhaughey

The mercury thing is way overblown.
Most of the fears relating to mercury which affected people in Japan back in the 60's (I think) and was basically the result of heavy industry pumping contaminants directly into a bay where local people harvested their food.
Any peak predator will have methylmercury levels above that of lesser fish but to be honest I think that you woul have to eat an awful lot of Tuna, Shark, Swordfish , and Marlin to really have to worry about mercury being an issue.
I feel that on balance eating fish regularly is probably more beneficial that not eating fish due to concerns about mercury levels.
Where do you stop worrying?
Omega3 intake vs Mercury,vegetables vs Pesticide residues, BAH! just eat it an be happy rather than worrying about everything and dying miserable!

Geordie_Girl

As far as I've heard the heavy metals in fish like swordfish, shark, tuna etc only pose a real danger to pregnant women (if even then). Other than possibly in specifically polluted areas of course.

We'll have to check with the guy in Temple Bar next time we're there exactly what type of tuna he gets and where from. I was under the impression he'd said 6 hours at most, that's definitely true of most of his fish (he only buys from 1 day trawlers), but obviously I was mistaken about the tuna, the more exotic stuff can't be that local now that I think about it. Definitely extremely fresh though, and sashimi quality. mmmmmmmmm

Diogenes

Nice to see some ethically responsible food discussion.

Tuna, like red meat is something I only eat rarly. It's a treat, something out of the ordinary, and yellow fin which I get from my local fishmonger, carved off the fish, which comes with it's skin (a great way to check if the fish is fresh).

I like to smear em with olive oil, then salt and alot of black pepper, and leave them in the fridge for an hour.

Then I make a salsa with a twist.

Two avacados
Two beef tomatoes
One red onion
pinch Cumin,
A lime
2 tablesppoons olive oil
2 cloves of garlic.
One red chili

Peel the tomatoes, and then chop the tomatos the onion avacado and and dice the garlic and chili.

Squeeze the lime, the olive oil, and mix the the cumin in....

Toss the mix with the juice and leave in the fridge for an hour.

In a pan heat some olive oil till the pan is very hot, and sear the peppered tuna steaks one side for a minute, and then turn them for another. Serve ontop of the salsa.

It's great.