Pan Seared Tuna in Sesame and Poppy Seeds

You guys watch Discovey? Those shows about dangerous fishing, deadliest catch, or whatever? Did you ever imagine that one of those gigantic crabs or tunas or swordfishes found a way to your kitchen? No?  I’m gonna be honest and say that that fantasy is the only reason I watched those shows, I  REALLY don’t like fishing, but I also REALLY like fish. 

So imagine my joy when I managed to get my hands of this (rather small compared to its TV relatives) tuna, weighing around 2 kilograms. With this opportunity at hand, I decided to try and cook this fish using a technique that I saw being rather hip, namely pan searing it with a poppy seed coating. I added sesame to this mix, and (thanks to the genius of Gordon Ramsay) a couple of other ingredients. 

So, here they are:

•           The fish, I just cut some sections of it, this recipe works best with some pieces of tuna steak (if you have those in your fridge right now, I would really like to know where you live)
•           Sesame and poppy seeds
•           Soy sauce, light
•           Wasabi paste
•           Olive oil

Really heat up your oil, while it does that coat the fish in : 1. Soy sauce, 2. Wasabi (don’t go overboard with this one), 3. The seed combo. Fry the fish for 2- 3 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of your cut.

If you are using pre-cut tuna steaks, you need to bring the meat to the point in which it has 1-2 centimeters of white on the sides and the rest of the meat still has a powerful, dark red (if the meat is overcooked, it will flake and be impossible to cut into sections).

As a side dish, I opted for cous-cous and some oven baked veggies. 

Quantity wise: cous-cous (just pick whatever quantity you need), 1 zucchini, 1 red bell-pepper, 2 medium red onions, 200 grams of cherry tomatoes, 2 tbs of fresh chopped coriander leaves.

For the grain, make sure you have some nice, hot, vegetable stock, pour that on top of the cous-cous until it covers it for about 2 centimeters, cover the cous cous with some cling film and wait for 10-15 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed, mix around with a fork to fluff it up. 

As for the vegetables,  cut the first 2 in small cubes (2-3 centimeters), the onions in medium thickness rings and the tomatoes in half, coat everything in olive oil, salt and pepper and pop it into the oven at high heat (in a non stick tray or by using grease proof paper), cook for 40 minutes.

Add the coriander leaves on top after the veggies are done. Put all of the cooked dishes on a plate, make a ½ lemon, 4 tbs olive oil, 1 tbs white wine vinegar, salt pepper vinaigrette, and sprinkle that on your fish and side dishes generously. 

Enjoy!