Tonight we’re having seared ahi tuna with steamed baby bok choi. For the sauce, I used a variation on traditional ponzu dipping sauce that worked well with both the tuna and the bok choi.
As usual, I like my tuna grilled on the outside and rare on the inside, while Gene likes his cooked all the way through. With any kind of meat, it’s a challenge to reach the medium-well status that he prefers by grilling or pan-frying, but the sous vide cooker is fool-proof.
While Tulsa has a seafood market that flies in fresh fish, it’s both inconvenient and relatively expensive. Also, the fresh stock comes from the Gulf, so I’m not sure that the tuna isn’t of the “once-frozen” variety that the grocery store carries. In any casse, Sams carries frozen tuna, and I’ve found these to be indistinguishable to what the local fresh market carries, so I used these.
For the sous vide cooker, I put Gene’s tuna steak in a bag with some thyme, crushed garlic, and a tablespoon of olive oil, sealed the bag, and put it in a 115F bag for 35 minutes. It came out firm, moist, and cooked through, just like he likes it. I let it rest for five minutes, then finished it by coating it with black sesame seeds and searing it for about a minute on all sides. I seared my raw tuna at the same time.
For my tuna, I painted it with garlic-infused olive oil, and coated all sides with the black sesame seeds. I set the heat to medium-high, waited for the skillet to come to temperature, added a drizzle of the garlic-infused oil to the pan, and then added the two tuna steaks.
While the tuna sears and before the Maillard reaction completes, it will stick to the pan. But after a couple of minutes, it will release, and that’s when to turn it. If you try to turn it too soon, it will stick and you’ll have a mess, so be patient! The sous-vide tuna, being already cooked, releases before the raw tuna, so pay attention.
Sear both sides of the tuna, then use tongs to sear the edges, too. After this, rest the tuna steaks for about five minutes on a cutting board, then slice against the grain. To plate the dish, drizzle some of the sauce on the plate, array the tuna slices on the sauce, then drizzle more sauce over the fish.
You can fix the sauce ahead of time, or while the fish is in the sous vide cooker if you’re using one. It’s easy, and quite good. It doesn’t taste like authentic ponzu sauce, but it’s still tasty.
I steamed the baby bok choi in my microwave steamer for five minutes. That’s much healthier than roasting, and more energy efficient. Today’s recipe uses three gadgets from Amazon–the sous vide cooker, a hand blender (or infuser) and a microwave steamer. They are all really handy to have. The steamer in particular works well and is easy to clean up.
Garlic-Lime Sauce
Equipment
- 1 Hand infuser
- 1 Container to mix the sauce–a large coffee mug will do
Ingredients
- 1 small lime, zest and juiced. May need more than one since you need a minimum of 1TBSP of juice.
- 2 Cloves garlic
- 2 TBSP Orange Juice
- 1 TBSP Grated ginger (about 1/2 inch of pealed ginger root)
- 1/2 C Soy sauce (or ponzu sauce if you can find it)
- 2 TBPS Mirin, or a sweet white wine
- 2 TBSP Honey, or more to taste.
- 1/4 TSP Xanthum gum optional, for a thicker sauce
Instructions
- Zest the lime and place the zest in the container you'll use to mix the sauce
- Roll the lime on your cutting board (this will help to release the juice), cut it in half, and juice it. You need to get at least 1 TBSP of juice, so it might take more than one lime to do this.
- Mince the garlic and add to the container. I used a garlic press instead of mincing, so I get mostly the oil and flavor and less fibrous residue.
- Peal and grate the ginger. A cheese grater works fine. Add it to the container.
- Add the orange juice. If you want to squeeze a fresh orange, go ahead, but if you've got OJ in the fridge, that works fine.
- Add the soy sauce, mirin, and honey
- If using, sprinkle xanthum gum over the liquid
- Now use your hand-infuser to mix the sauce. Move the infuser up and down in the liquid to be sure that it mixes throroughly. It will take a couple of minutes at most.
- The xanthum gum works almost instantly. If it's not thick enough for you, just add a bit more–it's tasteless. Remember, though, while you can add some, you can't take it out!
- Taste the sauce for sweetness. We like a sweeter sauce, so I used about double what the recipe calls for, but that's probably too sweet for most.
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