This a very quick and easy meal to prepare. It is important that the tuna is as fresh as possible, and is a boneless piece. Ideally this is a steak cut from a tuna loin.
The salad is a basic old French recipe. If you asked 100 chefs what that recipe included you would get 100 different answers. Here the salad is made from fine green beans, very quickly blanched in boiling water and then rapidly cooled. Fresh black olives, some red onion finely sliced, some cooked and sliced new potato and some tomatoes. These have been gently mixed together with a little home made salad dressing.
The tuna is tossed in a little olive oil then sprinkled with some salt and ground pepper. Some people prefer to use quite course cracked black pepper as this gives the fish a bit more zing. The tune is cooked on a very hot, preheated griddle pan. It will need only two or three minutes on each side and should remain pink in the middle. If you cook it all the way through it will become very dry.
The salad is put into a ring mould on the plate and gently pressed down. This is purely for presentation and is not really necessary. The griddled fish is then put on top. We have then lightly drizzled the plate with a little home made basil oil and garnished it with some quails eggs. That is it. The things you should remember about preparing this dish are to use very fresh tuna, and do not over cook it. I hope we get a few more warm days this year so you can enjoy this dish as a great light lunch in the garden.
Enjoy.
Paul Vincent: Head Chef