Sometimes we do crazy stuff to our sandwiches which doesn’t work out so well, like our infamous pasta-sandwich. If you don’t try it how would you know, right? This time we did crazy stuff, and it worked out wonderfully, although by any stretch of the imagination this sandwich should not have worked. Perhaps one really can’t do any evil with seared tuna….
As one of our guests said when I won the weekly pizz-off pizza dinner with this pizza: “It’s not fair, no one can loose with seared tuna!” To be fair I have to concede the point I suppose, as even breakfast cereal with seared tuna would probably be awesome (someone try and let us know). The dough was new for us as our friends at Rossi Pasta sent us a few samples to cook with (Thanks guys). Probably one of our best tasting pizza’s ever.
One of the wonderful thing of making scones for a living (We run The Scone Company), is that sometimes we have to experiment with new flavors. This sandwich includes a savory scone we made as an experiment, which has goat cheese, chives and cracked pepper and salt on top. It was delicious and although the goat cheese melted too much, it still left a nice flavor in the scone. This is one of our test-sandwiches – a seared ahi tuna sandwich with Mr. Stripey tomatoes, a bit of garlic mayo and a smidgen of pesto.
During a recent visit to an Asian grocery store, we found some bread called “Banh Da”. Honestly, we’re not sure if that’s the manufacturer or the bread type, as it’s all in Vietnamese. It’s a rice bread, and it says on the package it’s made entirely from rice flour and water. We’re not quite sure what all the little black spots are, or how it got so shiny, but it’s all part of the mystery we guess. So, we decided to try it out with a seared salmon appetizer arrangement.
After making a fantastic tuna sandwich, we made a few variations of tuna appetizers the next day. This is one of them, and it’s great. When working with tuna, be very careful not to overpower the subtle taste. We added a very mild Saint Faron cheese as a spread almost, and topped it with a small amount of balsamic vinegar reduction. Notice how the vinegar brings out the texture of the tuna in the pictures. This is a bite of food heaven.
A simple appetizer, but not cheap due to the tuna. However, well worth the money if you like us love seared tuna. We got a few nice steaks at Costco and decided to make Tuna Sandwiches, and appetizers from the leftovers. This is one of them, and it belong in the very tasty food group 🙂
Since his birthday lunch of seared tuna at Blue Water Seafood Market and Grill, Anders has been dreaming about making a tuna sandwich. But the price of fresh tuna and our relative inexperience with cooking it has served as a big deterrence. You don’t want to ruin a $14/lb tuna steak! Anyway, this weekend he could not be stopped. We finally succumbed and bought a ginormous ahi tuna steak at Costco. This was one fantastic looking steak – probably big enough for 4-5 tuna rolls. So the plan was to sear the tuna, and, borrowing inspiration from Blue Water Seafood, serve it on a soft bun, rather than the artesan-style breads and rolls we typically use.
With a game plan in mind, the search was on for an acceptable roll. Anders just happened to be shopping at Lucky Supermarket – one of the 6 supermarkets that we just had to visit this weekend to satisfy our finicky grocery needs – when he happened upon: Pandesal rolls. Slightly sweet Filipino bread rolls which are very soft. Getting home with the unexpected find, it was time for the searing. A quick Google search, and a plan were laid to do one steak with sesame seeds, and one with a spice rub. From this point on we basically improvised the recipes below based on the content of our pantry, and the rest was… well see for yourselves.
It’s easy to buy pre-made tuna salads in a store, but it’s so much more fun and creative to do it yourself. The whole process takes about 5 minutes, and you get exactly the taste you want. Spice it up, or keep it mellow. This is our recipe for tuna salad, but every time we make it we change a thing or two. You will find this version on some of our upcoming sandwiches, such as the Tuna Salad Appetizer. Bon Appétit.