Wasabi and Soy Marinated Tuna Steak with Creamy Wasabi Garlic Sauce

Hits Well, this recipe is super flavorful, requires very little marinading time and feels super ‘spensive. Usually I cook my tuna for more time than pretty much everybody says you should because I have a super sensitive stomach, but I made this recipe twice…the second time I did not cook it into smithereens. Yes, I’ll admit it was more flavorful and I probably should have tried this a while ago. This recipe is for grilled tuna but I made it in my house in my nonstick skillet with considerable success. The trick to tender, I have to remind myself, is to keep the lid on.

Misses Not much honestly. The initial time I made this, I made the sauce but I did not sufficiently finely dice the garlic so it was kind of distracting in terms of how it looked and how it tasted. This sauce really requires a garlic press so since I don’t have a garlic press (my old tool perished in the fire), I used powdered garlic when I made it the second time.

Ingredients

Wasabi Sauce

tsp of wasabi powder

tsp of water

tsp of rice wine vinegar

2 tbls of mayonaise (I used reduced fat)

1 garlic clove VERYVERY finely diced or garlic powder

Tuna

tbls soy sauce

tbls of vegetable oil

0.5 tsp of wasabi powder

2 fresh tuna steaks

Wasabi and Water

Simple ingredients make such magic together. Make the sauce by combining the wasabi powder and water. Let it sit for 9-11 minutes or until it has become a paste.

Saucy, Very Saucy.

Mix the remainder of the ingredients until the liquid is smooth and integrated.

*If you dice actual garlic cloves don’t freak out if they’re visible. This versioned pictured has powdered garlic.

Marinate on this…

This recipe takes a few ingredients but the flavor is massive. Create the marinade by combining soy sauce, oil, wasabi powder. Marinate the tuna for at least 5 minutes.

what’s cookin’?

Tuna, and oh man is it going to be good!

Add your marinated steak to a hot pan with a tsp of olive oil, turn on to medium / medium low. Cover but check periodically you don’t need to add more oil. Tuna is very lean so there’s not much natural fat to cook itself in.

Hey Good Lookin’!”

Your tuna is done when it has a sear on all sides, which means you might need to turn it using tongs to sear the sizes. Cook to your preferred level of doneness - I know the soy sauce gives it an unusual color, but honestly don’t judge your fish by their cover..or something like this

Give your tuna a rest

Then say “ Wake up, it’s time to get sauced.”

When it has finished cooking, let your tuna rest outside of the pan. When it has rested, cut it into individual pieces as you would cut a steak and drizzle with what is your sauce which is your own special version of Asian inspired Aoli….

The war against hunger is truly mankind’s war of liberation. ~ John F. Kennedy

Honestly there have been times when buying Tuna was something I would do without thinking and there are times when I could afford to do it is remember what something expensive tasted like. When I have something I have at times not been able to afford, I try to treat it with care and love. This post was hard for me to write because it involves talking about being hungry and it involves revealing parts of my past which I am embarrassed about. I should not be embarrassed; I grew up in the land of plenty, so despite my woke understanding I did not cause this, I still am. When I cook things I have not been able to afford for a while I am reminded, sometimes almost painfully about what it was like to look at the protein counter and have to pass it by.

This post is not a lecture. it’s kind of meditation on gratitude. Many people who have experienced hunger or food insecurity in their households do have a different kind of appreciation for food. If you are built like me you feel gratitude for food in a way you didn’t before everything got scary and you had nothing to eat. The reality is last year, almost 56 million people experienced food insecurity in their households and this means 56 million people were scared they would have no food to eat. This does not include the households who had food but not necessarily food they wanted to eat, households which could not afford produce, or the people who were too embarrassed to talk about their lack of being able to meet their own basic need of feeding themself. In this land of plenty we do place a value judgment on people who seem to not be able to meet their own needs and we also don’t value how hard it is to be poor. To be a member of the working poor, a group of people who nobody seems willing to talk about, means you are trying to meet your own needs, you are managing with your own meager resources. you take pride in trying to provide for yourself even though your efforts don’t result in financial security or power, you make decisions EVERY DAY to forgo luxuries to pay for necessities and you confront everyday the reality that the people who make the laws and the rules largely ignore now hard you are working. It means standing in grocery lines eying people’s carts in line who seem to not be thinking about the cost of their out of season produce, their expensive proteins and their brand name cookies, and trying to reason why, despite all your trying, the brand name cookies are not in your price range. Being working and poor means you spend a lot of your time and energy making very little but it means you are trying. Since I have had some spectacular reversals of fortune and I have clawed my way through these things, I can see how sometimes nonsensical the universe is in terms of who is an anointed “haver” and who is somebody struggling to make ends meet. There is something so noble about trying to make it, and still succeeding at holding on to your humanity.

When I buy something expensive, even if it is something I need, I am filled with this doubt about how necessary it was. When I treated myself to this tuna, it made me nervous. Seven dollars for 2 pieces of tuna seems like negligible money, but I have fed myself with $15.00 for the entire week so this tuna purchase made me wince.

When I made this I made it to add some variety to my blog but also because I wanted to reassure myself my having had so little does not mean that I deserve to have so little. I’m a person who has made none of the bad decisions people say poor people or hungry people make, and I am also a person who has at times had a considerable amount of income. The argument that the poor are poor for a reason holds so little water when examining my life, that it should be a firm rebuttal to people who insist they have because they deserve to have more than people they claim don’t work as hard as them or people who they say are just not trying hard enough. Are there lazy poor people? Yes, but somebody who works an hourly job every day with no security and no fanfare doing something unglamorous or dirty or boring or dangerous is not lazy. Not even close.

I am making my way out of a financial mess I did not create and trying to do it the correct way. There have been bills I could not pay and there have been things I have bought to get me to the place I want to be, like nice comfortable sustainable shoes and a sundress which will make me feel beautiful I can wear all summer, other people might not have spent their money on. This tuna, people might say, I should not have splurged on if I have yet to make my student loan payment, but in reality I have made all the decisions I could make with an eye towards emerging from this whole. My student loan is on hold because I had so little and I am looking forward to being able to pay it because as a proud person who has been very poor, I define part of my worth, perhaps unfairly, on my ability to be independent and handle my responsibilities. I’m a person with advocates, an understanding of my skills, a memory of feeling valued by the world and I am also a person of faith, so I perhaps have weathered this downturn better than many people would have. What I have learned is you have to make sure your decisions are things you can answer to yourself for, because you are the only person whose approval you should always unconditionally seek out. I have feet problems, problems which were made worse from walking around for years without a car and decent shoes, so I need good shoes or I won’t be able to move, walk or do my job it was hard to get. Part of myself which I love is the part which loves clothes, and I have been in a position where I have been to not feel pretty or wanted, so an investment in a few dresses which make me feel like I have a little bit of feminine power left is essential to my mental health as a sexual assault survivor and PTSD sufferer. I know nobody asks me to explain myself, even when they should, but I just did. I did it so you would understand sometimes taking care of your health and providing for your future means spending money, no matter your debts. I deserve good shoes and clothing which I like, like you deserve good shoes and clothing which make you feel powerful.

So, when I bought this tuna I was reminding myself things are looking up and I was treating myself to something to remind me, in a situation which seemed designed to make me feel I am not deserving of good things, I do have worth. Normally I live on eggs, what’s on sale and frozen proteins, but I was celebrating myself because somebody needs too. Just kidding…I jest, but dealing with the trauma of being poor requires so much more than making a little bit more because it takes work to retain your humanity and your commitment to being kind, and sometimes this means spending money you could save. Sometimes the things we can do to help people in need are the things we would think are frivolous or not practical. I remember when I was in a bad position somebody asking me what would help me feel good about myself and I blushed and stammered out, I would like tweezers to care for the garden hedge which is my eyebrows. It was at a time I did not have the luxury of vanity but catching a glance in a mirror of my unkept brows seemed to take something away from me every time it happened. This little kindness would be scoffed at people who think people at soup kitchens should be grateful just to have food, but it made such a difference to me. At the time I was working and it was very hard to make the soup kitchen schedule so I was moved to tears when the soup kitchens distributed sandwiches I could take with me and eat at my own leisure or even eat in the break room with my fellow employees like I was just another employee. When people ask me what to buy to donate to food pantries I suggest things like brownie mixes which don’t require many ingredients because poor people like dessert too, culturally competent ingredients like sofrito, fish sauce, and spices which are pricey but are so much a part of the cuisines of certain cultures that not having them feels like yet another indignity, and things like tuna packets or individually packaged crackers because people who are working, seeking work or even tasked with making appointments need often to eat on the run. This is especially true of people who are struggling with having, finding or keeping housing. Food is part of the human experience, and having these little dignities makes getting through what you are getting through easier. If you are feeding yourself well, it is so much easier to do hard things.

For this meal I cooked myself, I thanked the fish who gave its life so I could eat, I thanked my complicated faith which in its compassion for the poor made me feel valuable even when I was my poorest, I thanked the people who have given me opportunities to emerge from this quagmire, I thanked the people who deal with me when I am difficult and despairing because they have helped keep my soul alive, I thanked the people who care about me in agencies whom I have at times resented but who have tried to be fair the tragically moral, but lovablely stubborn idealist (some would say and hellion) I have always been and I thanked my world for making me feel I was so essential I had to keep fighting, even if at times it felt like I was not fighting for myself. The purpose of this post was not to chide my readers, it was to talk about something which I find embarrassing in the hope it will create more understanding for others and it might lead to more compassionate conversations about how we see need. In this year so many people who had not ever experienced need found themselves needing help and my hope is these people will work towards creating a culture where needing is not pathologized, but is seen as part of the human condition. We all need things and help every day, and the way to respect a person, especially a hurting person, is to respect their needs as valid and to do for them, what they articulate they know should be done to feed the needs of their bodies and their spirits.

“God, to those who have hunger, give bread, and to us who have bread, give the hunger for justice. ~”

Tuna with wasabi mashed potatoes and Cooked rosemary carrots