Recipe: Furikake crusted yellowfin tuna with wasabi mayo
We have a friend who loves to fish. I mean, he’s one serious fisherman. He drives to our neighboring state of Louisiana on the weekends to go deep-sea fishing. He went halfsies on a boat with his dad so they could take fishing trips together. He’s getting married this summer, and for his bachelor trip, he’s going to Costa Rica on—you guessed it—a fishing trip. (I’ve been told by the hubs there are other activities on the agenda, but we’ll see what really happens when you put the old man in a new sea. Will he finally catch his white whale? Sorry, the writer in me couldn't help throw in those puns.)When our friend gets a big catch, he brings us fish, and in exchange, we turn it into a meal for him. It’s a good relationship: we get some gratuitous, fresh, otherwise expensive fish, and he feasts. Once, he caught a 150-something pound yellowfin tuna, and a big slab of that fish lay vacuum sealed and frozen in our freezer for months.I only recently thawed the massive hunk of yellowfin tuna, if only to make room for some of his newly caught blackfin tuna and red snapper. I’m not good at guessing a protein’s weight when it’s frozen solid, but let’s just say it was about the size of my head and could seriously injure someone if used in a game of dodgeball.Obviously, being a family of two, we’re not going to eat the entire tuna in one evening, which meant we had to break down the slab into further cuts suitable for our planned menus.I film my cooking show, Four Senses, in Canada, and that’s where I was introduced to Wusthof Canada knives. I appreciated their quality, but I already had a fine basic set of Japanese knives back home. I did, however, need some ancillary tools for specialty cuts, I.e. All this fish flying into our kitchen. The blades on my Japanese knives are stiff which, while offering great control over, say, a carrot, they pose quite a challenge when it comes to delicate filleting. Wusthof Canada recently developed technology to make their knives even sharper, which prevents you from having to saw away at the fish and leaving it in distasteful shreds.I recently got this Wusthof Canada filet knife for all my seafood (and meat) needs. Its flexible, thin blade allows for easier, more precise handling of this delicate yellowfin, and when you're a Blind Cook, precision is even more important. The humongous slab was first cut into steaks, of which we saved six for a quick weeknight meal of furikake crusted tuna with wasabi mayo (see below for recipe). Then we cut another portion into healthy chunks and used it to cook spicy fermented cabbage stew (kim chi chigae)—just be sure to add the fish near the end of cooking time to get tender results and not a mouthful of dry fish.I get the feeling between the two of us, we’ll be tired of tuna by week’s end, but I dare not complain. At least we’ve got a badass filet knife and a few solid recipes to make the Week of Excessive Tuna worthwhile.
- Visit the Wusthof Canada website or their Cutting Remarks blog to learn more about their products.
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