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Tuna Tartare

July 28, 2010 by Jennifer Che 4 Comments

Fatty Tuna Tartare
One of my favorite sauces is spicy mayo. You know which sauce I’m talking about – the one they use for spicy tuna rolls or spicy salmon rolls. It has an addictive flavor of its own and works really well with all sorts of raw fish.

Granted, please don’t waste the sauce on really fresh fish that can stand on its own. But for your ordinary everyday roll?  Why not?

Tartare typically costs less because it’s made with inferior or uglier materials. The most beautiful pieces of fish are cut into sashimi or nigiri slices. The remaining bits, which still often have great flavor but possibly compromised texture, must be chopped up and served some other way.

The ones that don’t have as good flavor can easily be enhanced with the addition of this magical spicy mayo. It’s a great and simple way to dress up less expensive fish into something fancy and delicious.
Salmon yellowtail sashimi
I recently visited New Deal Fish Market to check out their fish selection. I asked if they had toro (tuna belly, one of my favorite foods in the world). Unfortunately, they had sold out of toro, but they did have this less expensive cut of fatty tuna (pictured above, bottom left piece with the stripes).

Carl Fantasia, the owner, told me that this cut was more flavorful than normal tuna (maguro) because it had more fat. You can tell too – it’s got the classic pink color of toro and tons of marbling. However, this part of the fish has a lot of connective tissue (all those white stripes you see), and therefore the only way to really prepare this fish is to chop it up into small pieces or painstakingly remove the connective tissue.

I took his advice, sort of. I painstakingly removed the connective tissue AND chopped it all up into little pieces (once I realized that the tiny slivers of meat between the connective tissue were pretty much useless on their own).

I mixed it up with some spicy mayo and, viola! I had my own tuna tartare.
_1040314

Spicy Tuna Tartare
1/2 tsp Sriracha Sauce (Asian chili sauce)
1/4 tsp Sesame Oil
2 T Mayonnaise

Raw fish, finely chopped

Combine Sriracha sauce, mayonnaise and sesame oil in a bowl and mix together well. Add more Sriracha sauce and/or sesame oil to taste. Combine with chopped up tuna and serve.

If you’d like, you can stuff the finished tartare into a small cup and invert it onto a plate for a more dramatic presentation. Top with something green, like scallions (as pictured), parsley, or chives.

Note: please make sure to purchase fish suitable for eating raw. This usually means it’s really fresh (you can always ask the fishmonger) or it has been frozen for a specific amount of time according to FDA guidelines.

Enjoy!

_1040315

Michelin Starred Tartare
Here are a few other tartares from some very nice Michelin-starred chefs. Can you guess where these are from? (click on the photo to find out).
Joel Robuchon
Jean-Georges



Finally, A Note on Sustainability
Unfortunately, bluefin tuna is highly overfished and is not a sustainable choice. According to the Monteray Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, all populations of bluefin tuna are currently being caught faster than they can reproduce. The better choice for tuna would be certain types of yellowfin tuna (also known as “ahi” sometimes), U.S. Atlantic bigeye tuna, or certain types of albacore tuna. You can see the entire list here.

I’m personally very guilty of being woefully unaware of whether the food I am eating is sustainable or not. The thought of bluefin tuna going extinct because of our current unsustainable practices makes me sad, and therefore I’ve decided to try harder to become better educated about the seafood I eat.

Related Posts
Spicy Chili Mayo
Homemade Chirashi (New Deal Fish Market)

Giveaway
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©2009-2014 Tiny Urban Kitchen
All Rights Reserved

Filed Under: Fish, Recipe, Seafood

« Homemade Chirashi (New Deal Fish Market)
Smith & Wollensky $50 Giveaway Winners »

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Comments

  1. A Boston Food Diary says

    July 28, 2010 at 10:46 am

    This is beautiful…really stunning! I always want to work with raw fish but am so terrified- perhaps this will give me the courage!

    Reply
  2. yay! says

    July 29, 2010 at 12:01 am

    I think the best part of your post was the section on sustainability. Kudos to your efforts 🙂 Not to say the recipe wasn’t good, never thought of making my OWN spicy mayo before 😀

    Reply
  3. chriesi says

    July 29, 2010 at 9:57 am

    It is great to see that more and more people start care about overfishing!

    Reply
  4. Barry says

    January 10, 2016 at 11:48 pm

    I make a dish with similar tartar.

    I do the same type of mix…raw tuna, light mayo, sriracha sauce to flavor.

    I get myself a hot bowl of white rice, top with slices of light cream cheese, then with chunks of mango (I use Dole frozen. It make prep easier and their mango is so sweet and fresh tasting), finely chopped cucumber, top it with my tartar mix and then sprinkle tobiko on top.

    It may sound crazy but it is VERY yummy. Please try it and send me an email to tell me if you liked it 🙂

    Reply

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Welcome to Tiny Urban Kitchen!

JenChe

Hi, my name's Jen and welcome to my cooking, eating, and travel site! I am a Boston to Hong Kong transplant, born and raised in Ohio with parents from Taiwan. Feel free to head on over to the About page if you want to learn more about me, or just explore away, maybe starting with the Recipe Index or one of the travel pages! I hope you enjoy this site!
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