Enjoy this sneak peek tuna recipe to celebrate the launch of Genevive Taylor’s latest book SCORCHED: The Ultimate Guide to Barbecuing Fish. Check out our SCORCHED bundle to get a copy of the book plus a limited-edition Thermapen ONE for all your fishy grilling adventures.

Treat a tuna steak like a beef steak – you can eat it how you like! My personal preference is not too rare. I really like beef steaks rare but I prefer tuna not so rare; medium is more my bag, but this is your dinner, so you get to choose.

Do use a Thermapen if you have one. With fish, you are always treading a fine line between done and overdone because of the structure of fish proteins. A medium tuna steak will be cooked at around 50 °C (122 °F) so go a few degrees either side as is your preference.

Serve with sticky sushi rice or green salad or maybe even both. Other good things to eat with a tuna steak are garlic mayo or flavoured herb butters, recipes for which are included in SCORCHED. 

Ingredients

Serves 2

For the tuna steaks

• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp miso paste
• 2 x 175–200g tuna steaks
• 60g sesame seeds (a mix of black and white if you can get them, or just white)
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

For the wasabi ginger mayo

• 4 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1–2 tbsp wasabi paste, to taste
• 1–2 tbsp pickled ginger, to taste, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed to a paste
• Freshly ground black pepper

Scorched by Genevieve Taylor (Quadrille, £25) Photo by Jason Ingram.

Directions

• About an hour before you want to cook, marinate the tuna. Pour the soy into a small bowl and add the miso and a generous grind of black pepper, stirring together to make a smooth, thin paste.
• Rest the tuna on a plate in a snug single layer, pour the marinade over and rub in all over. Slide into the fridge for an hour or so.
• Meanwhile, take a small bowl and stir together the mayonnaise, wasabi to taste, pickled ginger, garlic and a generous grind of black pepper. Set aside in the fridge.
• When you are ready to cook, fire up the barbecue ready for hot direct grilling, letting the coals cook to a bed of embers and setting a grill tray or fish cage over the fire to heat up.

• When the barbecue is hot and good to go, sprinkle the sesame seeds over a plate in a shallow layer. Take the tuna steaks and press one side then the other into the seeds, then roll along the edge too. Take to the barbecue along with the sesame oil.
• Drizzle a little sesame oil over the uppermost side of each steak, then lift and rest oil-side down on the hot grill tray. Drizzle a little more oil over the top side. Cook for a minute or so until the white sesame seeds are golden, then use a fish slice to flip over and cook the other side for another minute.
• Slide the tray off the heat and use a Thermapen to gauge doneness: around 50 °C (122 °F) will give you a medium steak, a few degrees less will be rarer, a few more will be well done.

Genevieve Taylor

Author & Live Fire Expert

@genevieveeats

"Barbecuing doesn't need to be difficult when you have the right tools, so we're encouraging Brits to be #BBQBrave and challenge their cooking skills this summer."