Yellowfin Tuna Steaks

Tuna steaks have always been a little intimidating to me. Well, most seafood is. I feel like chicken is so much more versatile and much less easy to mess up. Being a recovering vegetarian and having not cooked any meat in a few years the task at hand was a little more daunting.

Resolving to eat more healthy and dating a guy from Florida meant incorporating more seafood into my diet(not at the most opportune time considering the Gulf oil spill). So, I was at the grocery store and saw some yellow fin tuna steaks. Remembering how much I enjoyed eating tuna steaks while in Hawaii made me buy them. I headed home to search for an easy recipe to hopefully not screw up.

Recipe adapted from cooks.com:

GRILLED AHI STEAKS (YELLOW FIN TUNA)

2-8 oz yellow fin tuna steaks

Marinade:

1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 clove crushed garlic (per steak)
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
small amount of sea salt, to taste
fresh ground black pepper, to taste

In a shallow 9 X 13 inch glass dish, prepare all of the marinade ingredients. Remember, if you have more than 2 8 oz tuna steaks, you might need to adjust the ingredients to marinate. Marinate both sides (dredge steaks and get marinade on both sides). Let sit in refrigerator for 30 minutes before grilling. *Soy sauce will overpower tuna if you marinate for too long!
Light the grill while tuna is marinating. Once coals are white (30 minutes) spread them and clean the grill, then wipe with oil so steaks don't stick.(See note below as I used the stove top).

Grill for 4 minutes or less per side for 1 inch steaks, depending on how you like them. Steaks should be firm with pink in the middle. If you prefer steaks to be more rare, grilling time should be 2 1/2 minutes on each side.

**Well, I didn't have access to a grill so I just heated up a skillet nice and hot and cooked them for the same amount of time. I turned the burner on high and left the skillet to heat up for about 10 minutes. Use a little of a high heat tolerant oil to grease the pan so they don't stick right before they go in and cook according to grill times.

They didn't look beautiful when they were done and I was quite skeptical about eating it, but it tasted amazing!

For a side, I reserved about 1/4 cup of the marinade to the side before putting the tuna in to marinate. I diagonally sliced 2 zucchini and 2 yellow summer squash in 1/8-1/4in slices and placed in a single layer on a non-stick aluminum foil covered baking pan. I brushed them with the marinade and baked them at 425F for 12 minutes or until starting to lightly brown on the edges. I've never enjoyed zucchini and summer squash so much. I have made them a few times again just by making a much smaller batch of the marinade and using it just for the vegetables.

Also, I believe "ahi" technically refers to blue fin tuna, not yellow fin, but I'm not one to argue with the person that submitted the recipe that brought such nice flavors to my mouth.