For our conversion day celebration this month, I made Kevin a delicious dinner of seared sesame wasabi ahi tuna with a wasabi cream sauce, served with wasabi mashed potatoes, asparagus and sake. To sum it up, it was EXCELLENT! It was one of those meals that you keep thinking about for days afterwards. Not to toot my own horn… but it was. :)
Here is a breakdown of the recipe I used for the ahi:
Ingredients:
2 ahi tuna steaks - sashimi grade
3 tbsp. sesame seeds
2 tbsp. wasabi powder
2 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. honey
1/2 tbsp. sesame oil
1/2 tbsp. peanut or vegetable oil
Directions:
Rinse tuna steak and pat dry. Combine sesame seeds, wasabi powder, soy sauce, honey and sesame oil in a shallow pan. Add ahi steaks, turning to coat both sides; let marinate for 10-15 minutes, then turn over and marinate the other side for 10-15 minutes. Heat vegetable oil in a heavy nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. After ahi is marinated, sear the ahi steaks for about 1.5 minutes on each side (I like my ahi really rare, cook for 2-3 minutes on each side if you don’t!). Next time I think I’ll actually cook for an even shorter time - maybe 1 minute on each side.
I drizzled the ahi with a wasabi creme sauce, which I made by combining 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream and about 2 teaspoons of wasabi powder. For the mashed potatoes, I just mixed some wasabi paste to the mashed potatoes.
