SV tuna & steak- dare to dream!

Big_Green_Matt_19613

Hi, all! Hoping that someone with a little more experience and dexterity with the SV unit might be able to confirm my Educated Guess.

I'm having a Steakhouse Night supper at my place this weekend, and the mains are going to be rib steaks and tuna steaks, the latter for our guests who don't eat cow.

I've made sv steak a jillion times before; easy peasy lemon squeezie. Preferring them medium-rare, I sv to rare and then sear over my Big Green Egg, which brings the ambient temp up, perfectly. That said, I'm less at ease with the tuna. Traditionally, I just give the damn things a really good sear, leaving the insides basically raw. It's tasty, but, frankly, there's some taste missing with the rawness of it. I suspect that the rawness is why we dip tuna sashimi and sushi into wasabi'd soy.

So my question: how do you smart people think tuna steaks would turn out, if I give them the same treatment as the cow? I don't see any reason why they wouldn't turn out just as beautifully (minding, of course, the length of time compared to the thickness of the flesh) as the steaks, but I'd love to hear from anyone who's done the deed before! If it makes a difference, I'm cooking with a SV Supreme

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

tshewman

They have a confit recipe here

tshewman

http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/confit-albacore-tuna

Big_Green_Matt_19613

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I'm aware of the tuna confit from MCaH, but the theme is Steakhouse Night, not Awesome French Fusion Night.

Don't wanna make little cubes of deliciousness; wanna make a tuna steak, ideally, at the same temp as the steak steak, so I can chuck 'em all in the SV and not think about it until I have to sear them!

Any more thoughts??

tshewman

Ah, now I understand. My "guess" would be in the 109F/43C for ~20min. We have a difficult time getting decent tuna here and tend to eat more salmon, bass, halibut and the like, so I have never tried it. Hope others contribute. Unfortunate about the access here and Mercury levels as I would love some Otoro to try.

reub_50398

Perhaps not what you're after, but why not make tartare instead? Fits with the theme, gets more flavor into it than a hunk of raw tuna and lets you play around with the parameters of the recipe and show off some knife skills. Not very modern, granted, but might be worth considering.

Big_Green_Matt_19613

Mm. So Todd, you're suggesting a much lower temp than typical meat-rare, what, in the 120F range. Obviously (and ideally), my plan would be to chuck both the tuna and the steak in the SV at the same temp, perhaps at different times, though I can't see any problem with keeping the tuna on for longer at a low-temp. If that's to be the case, I'll put the steaks in the sv and then jury-rig a second SV by using my Coleman cooler.

I wonder if there isn't anything online that deals with or shows finished tuna at different cooking temps.

tshewman

Fish (done rare) in general is done at lower temps (E.G. salmon) than red meats. I guess I'm assuming you would like a similar presentation as seared tuna (rare in the center with seared crust). IF so, I would consider doing the steak first then lowering the temp of the bath (so the steak can stay warm in the bath-lower the temp and put in some ice til it drops- without over cooking) and then the tuna. If you don't want the internal rare, then the temps would obviously be different. Also, the temperature is a personal estimate and there would obviously be a range. JMHO