Effortlessly Season Tuna Steaks With One Easy And Convenient Technique

At the risk of sounding like an old-timey infomercial, sometimes the simplest recipe's seasoning step can be a pain. We aren't even talking about the existential doubts instructions like "to taste" can evoke. No, when your cooking fat is heating in a carbon steel pan (oil is our go-to choice for tuna steak), and the fish still needs to be patted dry, we're more concerned with practical matters like how to get a nice, uniform coat of basic seasonings such as salt and pepper. As they say, there's got to be a better way. But one needn't be Georges Seurat or even a paid programming actor to achieve that beautiful, pointillist crust.

Tuna steaks, in particular, perform much better with a flavor dredge. When using only a salt shaker and pepper grinder to season, for example, it can be hard to get the right proportions and restaurant-quality finish that you're actually capable of. These just aren't precision instruments, so you'll have to make several passes to build the fine, cohesive layer of your seafood dreams. Instead, portioning your salt and pepper onto a dish, raking it all together with a fork to combine, and dipping the steak in the seasonings skin side up is a much easier and more effective method.

Tuna steaks are not suitable for the more elaborate dredging you might be familiar with, but this riff is an even lighter rift. Rather than something like fried chicken, which layers wet and dry ingredients, you must not introduce any additional moisture to the fish. Instead, you'll dip each surface that you want to season in the salt and pepper mix before searing. Skin side is typically sufficient, but you can get an even lovelier main by dredging the sides of the steaks as well. You'll just want to give them a quick sear to lock it all in, too.

Although you can technically season-dredge any protein, tuna steaks are particularly conducive to the all-in approach because they cook so fast; barely a couple of minutes on each side. Something like a nice, thick, butter-basted steak gets fired hotter and for longer — long enough for the pepper to burn. These seafood steaks, on the other hand, need but a brief turn atop the flames to come to the tuna's ideal searing temperature, keeping your seasonings in finer form.