Pepper-Crusted Tuna With Pomegranate Corn Salad

The best way to cook a fish is not to cook it. Tuna seared in a pepper crust is a candidate for the second place. Crispy and hot from the outside, raw fish inside, and a thin layer of lukewarm, beautifully soft cooked tuna creates a remarkable combination of different flavors and textures.

Don't be afraid of too much pepper! The pepper loses its hotness when seared. But you should crush it freshly in a mortar with a pestle, somewhat more coarser than you would do it normally.

The corn salad with its sweet and sour dressing balances the dish out and gives it a fresh note.

Ingredients

Serves four as a starter.

• 400 g tuna steak, cut 3-4 cm thick, best as a rectangle
• 1 lime
• 1 level tsp wasabi
• 30 g dried algae
• 50 g black pepper
• 150 g corn salad
• 1 pomegranate
• 1 tbsp honey
• 3 tbsp balsamico
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 shallot
• 2 tbsp olive oil for searing the fish
• salt
• black pepper

Preparation

Prepares in 20 minutes.

1. Soak the algae in a little water. Do not use the soak water!
2. Wash the corn salad and finely chop the shallots.
3. Cut the pomegranate in two. Vigorously beat the back of a spoon on the fruit in order to beat the seeds out.
   
4. Mix balsamico, honey, salt, and pepper, and stir with 4 tbsp. olive oil to a vinaigrette.
5. Mix the vinaigrette with the corn salad, the pomegranate seeds and the shallot cubes and let it stand a little.
6. Coarsely crunch the pepper with a mortar and a pestle. The finer the pepper, the hotter it gets and the more dominating gets the taste of the pepper.
   
7. Spread a thin layer of wasabi on the tuna steak, omitting one of the small sides. Cut the lime in halves and sprinkle some lime juice on the tuna.
   
8. Dip the tuna steak in the crunched pepper to coat shaking off the excess. Leave out one of the small sides. It will be used as a "window" later to see to which degree the fish is done.
   
9. Pour a little olive oil into a very hot pan and sear the tuna steak from all sides for about a minute, omitting the "window" side. A look at the "window" side gives you a good idea how far the fish is. It is done, when you see that the cooked layer from the outside is about one 1 cm thick. Inside it will then be done a little less than it looks on the open side.
   
   The upper side is done, the bottom side needs just a little more time.
10. Cut the tuna with a sharp knife into slices of about 1 cm thickness, and arrange them on the salad. Decorate with algae and pomegranate seeds.

The same recipe works with beef filet steaks but you will want to cook meat a little longer than fish. In either case, be it fish or beef, it should be really fresh and of top quality.