Recipe: Grilled Sicilian Style Tuna “Mercato del Tonno”

Ingredients:

• 4 x Yellow Fin Tuna Loin steaks (approx 180-200gm and 1-1.5cm in thickness)

Crust:

• 20gmFennel seeds
• 20gmCoriander seeds
• 5gm black pepper corns

Garnish:

• 2 table spoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• ½ Tomato diced
• ¼ Eggplant diced
• ½ Zucchini diced
• ½ Red capsicum diced
• 40gm Baby capers
• 40gm Toasted pine nuts

Butter Sauce

• 60ml white wine vinegar
• 60ml dry white wine
• 2 eschallots finely diced
• 4 whole black peppercorns
• 180g cold unsalted butter cubed
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• Salt to finish

Method

1. Toast all crust ingredients separately and then using a mortar and pestle, crush all ingredients until a coarse powder forms.
2. Reduce wine, vinegar, eshallots and peppercorns until 2 tablespoons remain. Strain into a fresh saucepan and discard eshallots and peppercorns.
3. Place reduction on a low heat and begin adding butter one cube at a time with a whisk. The butter must be cold and added 1 cube at a time or else the sauce will split.
4. Once all the butter is incorporated remove from the heat and add lemon juice and seasoning. Keep in a warm place but not too hot as the sauce will split.
5. Heat grill or griddle pan to High
6. In a small fry pan heat the Extra Virgin Olive Oil and sauté all ingredients for the garnish with a pinch of salt until just soft, approx 2 mins.
7. While veg is cooking roll tuna is a small amount of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and then in spice crust. Place on grill for 1.5 mins each side.
8. While tuna is cooking add veg to butter sauce and spoon 2 dessert spoons into the middle of the plate, draining most of the butter sauce off. The butter sauce is to loosen up the vegetable garnish.
9. Remove tuna from grill and slice into 3. Turn the tuna cut sides up so you can see the tuna is nice and rare. If needed you can slice a very thin slice off 2 sides to give the tuna some flat edges and make it easier to stand up. Garnish with drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and micro-coriander and thinly sliced truffled dwarf peaches.