Searing tuna

[Clerkenwellian]

Hi,

I'm trying to cook nicely seared tuna (i.e. all-but-raw inside, all-but-burnt outside) but I always get something that's an unappetising shade of grey on the outside and/or overcooked inside.

What's the best way to do this? Should I be coating the tuna in something? Griddle or pan? Oil or dry?

Advice much appreciated...

[Louisa Chu]

It sounds like you're boiling your tuna. This tends to happen - with meat too - when a pan's not hot enough and/or overcrowded. Heat your pan - griddle if you like - very hot, lightly oil your dry fish, carefully add it to the pan, leave it until it's just opaque, turn, season, remove, season other side.

[Ruth]

Oil and season your tuna. Heat a pan (preferably cast iron) to very very hot and give the tuna about 30 seconds per side. You should have no problem.

[cdh]

Have a look for the Good Eats episode where Alton Brown uses a roaringly jet-engine-afterburner hot chimney charcoal starter to get the tuna seared properly. Moral to the story is that you need huge quantities of concentrated heat to sear properly. Experiments with blowtorches might be in order if you can't get a charcoal chimney going in your cooking venue and your stove can't get your cast iron pan to glow red.

[Jinmyo]

All good advice. Nothing to it, really.

One question, though: How thick are the pieces? What kind of tuna? If too thin, you're better off making tartare. If too high a quality, you're better off just slicing sashimi.

[Lesley C]

Also, take your tuna out of the fridge a bit before searing. I hate getting a piece of tuna that's seared on the outside and cold on the inside. It happens in restaurants all the time.

[nightscotsman]

One excellent tip that I learned from Cook's Illustrated to keep grilled tuna tender and moist is to marinate it for 1 to 24 hours in extra virgin olive oil. According to them, the oil tenderizes the tuna by coating the strands of protein. The olive oil penetrates the fish more quickly than other oils because it is rich in emulsifiers. Just put the fish in a ziploc bag with 3-4 Tbsps of oil and a bit of salt and pepper, and refrigerate. You can also add herbs and spices to the oil marinade to bump up the flavor (I like loads of coarse black pepper).

[Louisa Chu]

Also, take your tuna out of the fridge a bit before searing. I hate getting a piece of tuna that's seared on the inside and cold on the inside. It happens in restaurants all the time.

Lesley, brilliant, yes, forgot to mention that. Of course fish is very fragile and you want to keep it chilled but yes, it should sit at room temp for about 10 minutes immediately before searing. Same goes for steaks - bring it to room temp.

[Bux]

Also, take your tuna out of the fridge a bit before searing. I hate getting a piece of tuna that's seared on the inside and cold on the inside. It happens in restaurants all the time.

Lesley, brilliant, yes, forgot to mention that. Of course fish is very fragile and you want to keep it chilled but yes, it should sit at room temp for about 10 minutes immediately before searing. Same goes for steaks - bring it to room temp.

Yeah, I hate it even worse when they leave it out overnight.

[Clerkenwellian]

thanks for all the tips - shall experiment and report back.

[stagis]

My blackened catfish story (very loosely related to seared tuna). Put the pan on high heat. Look around to find your spices. Find the fish. Spice the fish. Spit in the pan...yep - pretty hot. Start a beer. The recipe (Paul Prudhomme's? I forget) said that it would smoke 'a lot'.

Huh...

Unbelievable billows of smoke. All the smoke alarms in the house went off. I stuck it out the required time, eyess burning, nose running, then flipped it and watched the billows renew themselves...was that a neighbor's smoke alarm?

the kids thought it was a great adventure, making up excuses to go in the kitchen - they had to go on hands and knees. "Stay low! Stop, drop and roll!"

The fish was excellent. Next time, though, it'll be outside - where we ate while the house cleared.