Perfect Seafood Menu Options For Summer
Tuna is a popular food in many cultures and varieties, but it doesn’t have to be a difficult or expensive dish to make. There are techniques for cooking it that are very simple to learn and you can use them even if you’re not a chef. My wife and I do it all the time in our restaurant: as part of our appetizer course, we always cook tuna for lunch. Because of its versatility, tuna is an excellent ingredient for salads or sandwiches because you can use it in so many different ways.
It is also one of the few ingredients that does not need refrigeration; whether you are serving the raw product or cooked, a little salt will keep it fresh for several days (even though we keep ours on ice within our walk-in cooler).
Here’s how we do it:
1. Begin by coring the tuna into strips approximately 1/2 inch wide (i.e., with a knife)
2. Place them on baking trays lined with foil, sprinkle with kosher salt, and let sit at room temperature until they are cool enough to handle (about 30 minutes). This process will help keep the tuna from drying out while you prepare other ingredients—you can also put them into an ice bath after they have cooled down).
3. You’re ready to cook! You can cook your tuna any way you like—pan-fry it, grill it, boil it—but when you first cook your fish on the grill, we recommend letting the fish sit for about 10 minutes before turning over so that the outside dries out more quickly. The more flavorful your cooking will be as well!
4. Once cooked through (and served immediately), remove from grill and slice into thin pieces before eating immediately with your favorite dipping sauce or on its own with no added dressing or possibly soy sauce (we use our own homemade yuzu dipping sauce.) Do not overcook! Make sure that all sides are crispy but not burned before eating!
So, What techniques do we use to grill it?
I recently came across this article by Sudo, a Japanese website that explores the questions: “What is the Best Grilled Tuna?” and “Is It the Best Grilled Tuna, or is it the Best Tuna Sandwich?” (with a nice fictional spin on the question). In short, it answers both with a resounding yes.
The article goes on to describe some of their techniques for making it delicious and not just inedible. It is well worth a read if you are interested in learning more about how we do our grill things at our restaurant.
Why is grilled tuna better than other types of tuna?
This is a very simple question (at least, it was when I asked it) and yet one that many people struggle with. The answer seems obvious, but just like the answer to any problem: you don’t know until you try. Grilling, as a method of cooking, can be described in a number of ways. You could call it “roasting” since the heat source is usually something other than direct sunlight. Or you can think of it as “grilling” since the food is being cooked over an open flame and not on a preheated grill (which is what we do).
As with almost everything related to food: there are exceptions to the rule. When preparing and cooking grilled fish or chicken — some people prefer “broiled” over “grilled” — there are lots of factors that affect how it cooks and what happens in between those two words (no pun intended). These factors include: temperature and humidity; the type of grill surface; fuel; oxygen content; seasonality of the weather; and other variables such as cleanliness and cleanliness of the surface, whether or not it has been preheated, etc.
We’ve tested all these things ourselves here at our restaurant. And while some of them may be valid for some types of food cooked on gas grills at higher temperatures (i.e., no vegetable oil), they do not hold true for grilled fish or chicken prepared at lower temperatures (no vegetable oil). For example, steaks are very tender when grilled over charcoal in their natural state. Chicken breasts done this way are also very tender, but with very little fat left on them after grilling them from outside-the-bone side up using our charcoals-only method . We think this is due to overcooking on an unheated grill surface from its natural state — which means we feel that these foods have lost too much moisture during their long cooking time in order to make them tender enough for us to serve them without much fat remaining on them after grilling — so we cook them anyway until they are perfectly tender inside. This explains why chicken breasts cooked this way taste different from those cooked on gas grills under less optimal conditions (i.e., where they have lost too much moisture during cooking) The same applies to steaks grilled this way: they are extremely tender but still quite fatty because there isn’t enough moisture left on them.
If you want to try our award winning Tuna, come visit us at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront!
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