Seared Sesame Tuna with a Soy, Ginger and Lime Seaweed Salad and Daikon Noodles (includes Thermomix method)

When you eat out... and enjoy it so much you want to eat it all over again at home!

Not an exact replica of what I ate, but my interpretation of the flavours I enjoyed the most with a few extras... I do *love* eating sashimi, and the flavours of Japanese food - and I also love the additional flavour that is added by just searing the outside of fish like tuna and salmon before slicing it.

I love the umami flavours of seaweed and soy, perfectly balanced by the acidity of lime juice, and the fresh, crisp heat of radish and the nuttiness of toasted sesame seeds and oil - my seaweed salad is inspired by Kaiso salad.

And the best thing? Not only is this ridiculously tasty, and a real 'treat', it's really easy to throw together with minimal cooking AND... what's more, it's incredibly good for you too, which is just a coincidental fringe benefit! Recipe serves one, easily doubled (or quadrupled!), from 297 calories a portion.

Seared Tuna Nicoise Salad (includes Thermomix method)

A modern take on salade niçoise, topped with a seared tuna steak and a delicious, chunky dressing packed with bursts of niçoise flavours.

Contrary to popular belief, tuna isn't actually one of the core ingredients of a nicoise salad - anchovies are more likely to frequent the more authentic presentations, and the two wouldn't usually be served together. Cooked vegetables (e.g. potatoes and green beans) are also not part of an authentic salade niçoise recipe - fresh and raw broad beans are the way to go. I remember thinking I'd been 'done' when I ordered a nicoise salad in France a couple of decades ago, because they'd 'missed out half the ingredients'. But, what is this? Next I'll be telling you there are no boiled eggs either!

       

No, don't worry there are. However, there are as many recipes for salad niçoise, as there are for chilli con carne no doubt, and it's just as contentious! Even the modern Niçois break the 'rules' and serve tuna and anchovies together. So, if they can, so can we, and while we're at it, let's break a few more and keep everybody happy and call it Nicoise Salad instead! (I doubt anyone Niçois would be reading a recipe for it in English anyway - especially if they saw a photo with potatoes and green beans on it - sacré bleu!!). With this recipe, you can choose whether to serve it warm or cold - I like to have my potatoes, beans and eggs warm, which makes it a great dish for winter or summer.

So after our first little harvest of French beans this year (lovingly grown by the good man), together with a motley collection of different tomatoes, hastily picked according to ripeness (rather than variety!), I was inspired to blog my version of Nicoise salad, which has evolved over the years. Mine involves serving a seared tuna steak over the warm steamed green beans and potatoes (optionally tossed in a little olive oil), with lettuce and cherry tomatoes on the side topped with a fresh a boiled egg (of course!), and a wonderfully piquant chunky dressing, with the olives, anchovies and basil within it, warmed through until the anchovies melt into the dressing and finished with capers and diced tomato then spooned over the top... fancy joining me?

You can play around with the salad ingredients (or the dressing), of course, according to what you have and love - add peppers, cucumbers, radishes or whatever you have to hand, use rocket leaves, and even try it with the fresh broad beans if you want to see what you're missing out on! I have a love of fresh tuna, just seared on the outside and rare in the middle - cook your tuna the way you like it, or if you prefer, use a good quality (dolphin-friendly) jarred or tinned tuna (in oil, if you're going to do it the more Gallic way).

Serves two people, easily doubled. 470 calories per serving (328 calories without the dressing, if you want to use a bought dressing, or just have a drizzle of balsamic for a few calories). Halve these quantities for a sophisticated starter at 235 calories [Calories in square brackets - it will of course be more if you add more extra virgin olive oil for tossing potatoes in and drizzles!]

Seared, Marinated Tuna with Daikon Dressing and Mizuna

Although the title sounds a bit fancy...

This is actually a really easy dish to make. What's a daikon? It's just a big ole' white radish that looks like an overgrown fat carrot. Also known as a mooli. If you cant get hold of one you could actually just use your favourite radishes instead, because the flavours are quite similar.

Mizuna? You can just use your favourite salad leaves - watercress, wild rocket, whatever you fancy.

And the best thing is, you're just literally searing the outside of the tuna, so as long as you get the pan nice and hot, and don't mess about with the tuna, you really can't go wrong with cooking it.

See, it's deceptively simple!

And extremely tasty, too! And if you're entertaining you can make it look all fancy by serving with rice put in a little oiled mould with a strip of Nori (seaweed) in it, to go around the rice and give you some contrast (I served it with sushi rice, I'll be posting up my sushi guide which contains my recipe for sushi rice dressing, which I'll link here). And that's some 'Sunomono' you can see up top, which is basically just a really simple Japanese cucumber and wakame seaweed salad. You could even just serve it on it's own in half-portions, or with a tiny little sushi rice package as a sophisticated starter.

Right, what are you waiting for...