Wow, finally back to updating this crazy thing! I bow and scrape for forgiveness for my absence. Anyhow, in the meantime I’ve been working my arse off on 4 albums and a few singles, I’ve become one hell of an obsessed bike geek and, well, I’ve continued to cook and make awesome drinks and brew up interesting things to write about (we hope).

Anyhow, there was this dish I made about a month ago that was so good, so overwhelmingly awesome and tasty, that I completely forgot to take any pictures of it. It was gone in about 3 milliseconds. Today, at the behest of my image consultant, I made it again.

The local Trader Joes has really great deals on frozen fish (and, er, what’s been stocking our liquor cabinet of late). I usually don’t go for frozen stuff, but fish is one of those spur-of-the-moment things for me- for some reason I don’t often plan big splashy gala dinners around it. It just happens. So, it’s nice to be able to look in the freezer and say, “Crikey, wouldn’t a bit of tuna go down wonderfully right aboot now?” and be able to spring into action!

Sandwich à Thon d’Ahi avec le Poivre et les Champignons:
Cheeky Google translation of “Ahi Tuna Sandwich with Pepper and Mushrooms”

Slice a sandwich-sized 1″-thick ahi tuna steak in half to make two 1/2″ steaks. Marinate these with a squirt of Bragg’s (or fish sauce), the juice of half a lime, a sprinkle of sea salt, and such.

Press a clove of garlic into the mixture, then skin a 1″ section of ginger and press that with the garlic press as well, until most of the juice has been extracted, but only a little pulp. Make sure both sides of the fish are coated in the marinade, and re-coat once or twice as you go along.

Break up a teaspoon or so of peppercorns, a pinch of flakey sea salt, and a couple of cumin seeds in your mortar and pestle, or whatever else you got, mang. You don’t want powder- you want fragments. Pour this out onto a little plate and spread it around.

Break up 6 or so crimini mushrooms (brown) into your trusty iron skillet, pre-heated to medium. Savor the cathartic act of smashing the mushrooms. Do it with chutzpah and moxie. Do a little dance, make a little love, crush shrooms tonight.

As mentioned before, crushing the mushrooms allows much more of their flavor to come to the fore than slicing them does, IMNSHO, and it allows them to soak up more flavor, as well.

Anyhow, back to the matter at hand. Tear up a few choice leaves of basil and stir into the mushroom mixture. Squirt, yes, a bit of Braggs over the proceedings, stir and let it sizzle. The kitchen should smell like shangri-la at this point.

Put 4 slices of crusty bread in the toaster and set to light. If you’re like me and you have more enthusiasm than counter space and can’t justify a toaster when it’d take up valuable coffee machine space, blaze up your wok on medium and set the pieces of bread in it to toast.

Once they reach optimal light toastation, spread dijon mustard on 2 pieces, and mayo (I really dig Veganaise these days) thiiiiinly on the other. Set them on plates, ready to go.

Re-wet the tuna steaks, then coat them in the pepper mixture by laying each side down on your peppered plate, then add both to the hot skillet simultaneously. Continue to stir the mushrooms now and then.

If the skillet’s hot enough, you’ll start to see the tuna cook a bit right away. After a minute or so, or once cooking has risen through the steak a bit, flip. Isn’t that pretty!

When both sides have cooked a bit but you still see a tad of pink in the middle of the side of the steak, remove them from the pan and set them on their respective bready homes. Add half of the mushroom mixture to each, top with a few mung bean sprouts for contrast, and finally add the 2nd slice of bread.

As they say in the trade, you’re the (wo)man now, dogg!

Thanks for reading, I promise to keep things moving from now on I’ve missed you all!

Cheers and happy warm tasty holidays to you,
-gc @ f//f

Filed under: Recipes

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