Thursday, March 09, 2006
Grilled Tuna on a Lazy Day
Sunday was a nicely lazy and uneventful day. It's strange, the more boring others would find a day, the more I enjoy it. Some colleagues had invited me to watch the six nations rugby, and a friend wanted Lofty and me to join him for a music session at his local pub, but we decided that the best thing one can do on a Sunday afternoon is to stay at home, soak up the sun in the living room, surf the net and play some poker. Sad, isn't it? Or is it? I suppose, if it makes us happy, it can't really be bad.I am happy because I have more time to cook, read cookbooks and add to this blog, all things that I greatly enjoy. I must admit, I'm even mildly happy that Irish lack of reliability has forced us to sleep on the living room sofa for a week now. And just in case you're wondering who or what I am complaining about now, here's a brief explanation:
At the beginning of January, the building two doors down from ours caught fire. I don't know exactly how it all started; rumour has it that careless builders are to blame. What I know for certain, though, is that between us and them stood an old carpet warehouse, which quickly went up in flames. In all, it took six fire engines several hours to put it out. In the process, they not only wrecked the paint and carpeting in the hallway of our building, but also broke down our door (did they not believe Lofty when he told them that the place was empty?), destroyed the hinges on the bedroom window, so we could no longer close it, and knocked holes in the roof through which they proceeded to flood our living room in a miscalculated attempt to save the roof next door. So there we were, in the middle of cold, wet January with a window that could not be shut, a lounge full of pots and pans to catch the falling rain and a front door that my little nephew could have kicked in had he wanted to steal our telly. Luckily, most of the problems are sorted out by now; they fixed the roof, painted our flat and changed the door. The window was prised shut, so now we can't open it anymore, but at least temperatures stay slightly above freezing in the bedroom now. We were also supposed to have had a new carpet by now, but the
bloke is taking his time. It will probably be about two weeks he told us about two weeks ago. I personally don't expect to hear back from him for at least a fortnight. "So what's that got to do with sleeping in the living room?" I hear you ask. It does in so far as the builder told us that he wanted to lay the carpets throughout the whole apartment in one day and that we should think of what to do with the furniture. (I'm thinking hard, but so far short of burning it I have not come up with any ideas...) In the meantime, Argos finally picked up that busted old bed, so we at least have one less thing to worry about. But this means not replacing it until the carpet man has been in. And so we are sleeping on our sofa bed in the living room until the bloke decides that the two weeks are up.
This also means that I get to wake up in a sunny room if the sun is out when I wake up. The bedroom faces north and therefore sees hardly any sunlight, which is all right during the week, but not so nice on the weekend. And then there is the small matter of the busted window hinge and the polar temperatures it causes. So all in all, sleeping in our bedroom is an utterly unpleasant affair at the moment. I'm so sick of the cold. When will spring finally come our way? If the weather report is to be believed, it will be a few weeks yet -- an entirely depressing outlook.
I try to cheer myself up by serving more summer foods for dinner. We start with the tuna steaks I bought yesterday, lightly grilled to just heat through, and served on a bed of stir-fried vegetables with a lime and ginger sauce. Desert is a light lemon cheesecake from Glenilen Farm, a small producer of high quality dairy products in West Cork. The latter could probably have been a bit richer. As Lofty said, it's not bad, but it lacks substance. But there were no complaints about the former. The tuna and veg was exactly what we needed - a fresh, citrus taste that made us dream of a warm spring night in South East Asia.
2 tuna steaks, at least 200 g each(obviously, you could use many other kinds of fish here)
a mixture of vegetables suitable for stir frying, julienned (I used onions, carrots, shitake mushrooms, red pepper, sugar snaps and bean sprouts)
1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
a piece of ginger the size of a small walnut, grated (alternatively some powdered ginger)
½ lime, juice only
1 tbsp light brown or Demerera sugar
1 to 2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 to 1½ tbsp sesame seeds
Sunflower oil for frying
lime wedges and spring onion rings to serve
Blanch any harder vegetables, such as broccoli and cauliflower, in boiling water until they are starting to go tender. Drain and refresh under cold water. Drain well and set aside.
Heat about 2 tablespoons of oil in a wok or large frying pan over medium high heat. Add the garlic and ginger and fry for a minute until fragrant. Do not allow them to brown. Add the vegetables in order of crunchiness. In my case, the carrots came first, followed by the mushrooms, peppers, onions and sugar peas. The bean sprouts came last; they only take about a minute to cook.
In a second, shallow frying pan, heat some more oil over relatively high heat. When it is almost smoking, add the tuna steaks and fry them without moving for a minute or two, depending on the thickness. You want them to go slightly brown and sticky on the underside, but not cook them too well inside. Turn them over and finish off the other side. In the meantime, add the remaining ingredients to the vegetables and allow to heat through. Arrange the vegetables on two plates and put the tuna on top. Serve immediately with a few lime wedges on the side and some spring onions scattered over the top.
Christine at 9:48 pm
