Black Pepper Roasted Tuna with Onion Relish

Who would have thought that buying fish is wrought with such pitfalls. It is hard to keep up with all the research regarding sustainable, wild, farm raised, imported etc.,. The end result I have become very reluctant to buy fish. I resort to buying frozen fish mostly from Costco to make it all simple. Living as we do near all this water you'd think it would be easy to buy fresh fish! So if an agency comes along and says that they are going to do the certification it is that much easier. Look for the label and you are good to go. Not so fast.

I listen to a lot of radio while in the car. A few days ago it was this one - Under The Label: Sustainable Seafood . A three part series that explains how a label from a private agency called 'Marine Stewardship Council' which stamp its approval guaranteeing that particular fish is sustainably caught. Nothing is ever that easy when food is concerned. This article says a MSC stamp does not necessarily mean sustainable. A MSC label might mean you pay more for the fish but it does not guarantee it is sustainably caught or even if the fish falls under the safe and not over fished category. So there goes our easy way to buy politically correct fish.

As a skeptic of these green labels and my mistrust of councils or agencies that work very closely with the industry proved correct in this case. If you are interested in buying fish that does no harm then the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch is a better place for reliable information. As for me I am still bumbling along and for now the easy way out is not to buy fish too often.

Anyway for the fish story of the day, Apart from canned tuna I don't recall having bought any other form of tuna. So when a chance presented itself to taste something different I grabbed it. A tuna apparently caught in nearby Annapolis and was sold in Whole Foods and samples cooked by Chef Charlie were available for everybody to taste. Light and flavorful they were hard to resist. So I bought a few steaks to try out for myself. It was also quite interesting the chef recommended using ghee to roast the fish. Ghee and fish I could live with that. I am glad I did not over power it with a lot of spices and decided to stick with the recipe he suggested. Fish, pepper and ghee all complemented each other.

Black Pepper roasted Tuna with Onion Relish Ingerdients
For the Fish

1. 4 steaks of tuna
2. 1 tbsp of black pepper powder
3. 1/2 tbsp of garlic powder or finely chopped 2 cloves of garlic
4. salt to taste
5. about 1 tbsp of ghee

For the Onion Relish

1. 1 onion sliced thin
2. 1/2 cup of grape tomatoes
3. 2 tsp of chili powder
4. 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
5. salt to taste

Method

1. Rub the pepper and the salt on the steaks and set aside.
2. In a saute pan or a griddle heat the ghee and when it is hot add the tuna steaks, gently press in the chopped garlic. Cook for 2 minutes on one side flip and cook another 2 minutes on the other side. Take care not to overcook. The fish will become dry. Set aside.
3. To the same pan add the sliced onions and saute till the onions become translucent.
4. Add salt and chili powder, mix and add the tomatoes. Let cook till the tomatoes become soft.
5. Add the wine vinegar mix and turn of heat in a couple of minutes.

Serve the tuna over rice topped with the onion relish.