Ahi Ah-hah

Before I made it to the lamb at Costco, I was in the seafood area and I was prepared to get enough Ahi Tuna for five. I called Joanne and she was reticent, based on our not having had it before, and fish being hit or miss on the quality. And it wasn't particularly cheap. But, to try something new, I got a piece that was suitable for us for dinner tonight.

The plan, as it usually is in the summer, was to grill, but the weather didn't really cooperate. That meant grilling inside on the cast iron. Where as the lamb marinades were multi-hour affairs, the one I used for the ahi was 30-60 minutes. It was pretty simple: soy sauce, honey, ginger, pepper and a dash of sesame oil...

I'm getting ahead of myself. What I wasn't aware of at the time of purchase is that ahi is meant to be seared, with the inside still raw. As I mentioned previously, I tend to overcook meat out of fear of undercooking. And we're not sushi/raw fish eaters, so this presented a conundrum.

I adjusted the cooking times up a bit, to account for the likely less hot stove top (using the cast iron meant not turning it too high so that the smoke alarms went off) and wanting a little less rareness in it. One out of two ain't bad. No smoke alarm (or large quantity of smoke), but the middle still was very pink (about an 1/8th crust on either side, with about 1/2 slab of pink in the middle), and not that hot. We proceeded to eat with caution.

The ahi itself was very good--I definitely liked it more than I expected to. I commented to Joanne beforehand what was the chance we'd only have a couple of bites because we didn't like it. The crust/marinade was also very good and worked well with the tuna. But that pink! Joanne had concerns about the raw fish issue, so she stuck to the more cooked areas, but ended up having a sandwich. I figured I have enough sick days for work, so despite the joy that was the food poisoning/stomach virus episode in October, I soldiered on and nearly polished it off. It was definitely tasty. Hard to say if we'll try it again, though. In looking at prepared images afterwards, I cooked it about right. I guess we'll have to get over our pink trepidation.