Albacore Tuna Tataki Bowl

What are you eating tuna-ight? I myself am feeling like a Poke kind of day. Some melt in your mouth fish along with a rainbow of colors… Talk about beauty in a bowl!

This is for the people who like sushi, but are looking for a simple approach. Rather than the tedious way of trying to roll seafood, veggies and rice inside a sheet of nori, how about artfully arranging it all in a bowl? Add some colorful accompaniments and make a pretty-to-look-at dish with lots of appealing tastes and textures.

This bowl happens super fast. All you need is a little bit of this and a little bit of that, with the star of course being some sushi grade fish!

Living in Florida has its perks. Besides living on the water, great weather (except probably a couple of hot summer months) we have some great seafood, fresh from water to your table.

In our town, there are places where you can get some great catches of the day. Some days you can get lucky and come across some sushi grade tuna. Today happens to be such a day… An Albacore tuna day.

It’s a delicately mild, yet flavorful, fish and deserves to be treated delicately. There are many ways this dinner could have ended. Sushi? Poke bowl? Tataki bowl?

Poke bowls are a new generation of sushi and are getting very popular. Poke means “to slice or cut” in Hawaiian (yes, you guessed it right, it’s a Hawaiian invention).

It refers to chunks of raw, marinated fish, usually sushi grade tuna or salmon, tossed over a bed of rice along with different veggies and sauces.

There are slight differences between poke bowls and tataki bowls. Poke bowls always have raw marinated fish, while tataki is semi raw or flash cooked fish.

Both of the bowls need some sushi or sashimi grade fish like ahi yellowfin or albacore tuna or salmon. Tataki is the way to go if you are not too keen on eating completely raw fish.

What is “Tataki”?

Like Sushi, tataki is a Japanese style of cooking. The literal translation of tataki is “pounded” in Japanese. Though in reality it has nothing to do with pounding, it’s all about searing.

The flesh, mostly seafood, is flash-seared so it’s crispy on the outside but still rare inside, resulting in a delicious contrast of textures and temperatures. Then it is thinly sliced and arranged in a bowl.

They believe that the origin of the name “pounding” probably comes from different ways of preparing fish or other meat in Japanese cuisine. As in cooking tataki style, they sometimes gently pound the fish with fingers and marinade or pound the fish or other meat little with a knife when seasoning it.

The following ingredients go into our Tataki bowl

• Sushi grade albacore tuna – You can use any other of your favorite sushi grade fish, too.
• For marinade and dressing – Soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil, sesame seeds, olive oil, chili flakes, lime juice and honey.
• Mango
• Red cabbage
• Edamame
• Grains – We are going with quinoa, but any sushi style or jasmine rice would go great.
• Oil

How to create an Albacore Tuna Tataki bowl?

1. Cook the grain according to the instructions on the package.
2. Prepare the veggies and fruits: Cut the carrots into matchsticks, chop the red cabbage and dice the mangoes. We are using frozen edamame so they are ready to eat by simply microwaving.
3. Make the marinade by mixing all the marinade ingredients. Reserve 2-3 tbsp marinade as dressing in a small bowl. Marinade the fish in the rest of the marinade.
4. Sear the fish quickly on a hot skillet. Slice it thin. Arrange the fish over a bowlful of rice along with diced mangoes, edamame and carrots. Drizzle some dressing over the fish and veggies along with a good sprinkling of sesame seeds.
5. Admire your tataki bowl before digging in.

Tips for cooking Tuna

• Pat the tuna dry with a paper towel.
• Make sure the pan is hot enough before you add the tuna to the pan. You want a smoking hot sizzling pan.
• Watch the tuna closely, as it cooks quickly. We recommend searing it 30-45 seconds each side, depending on the thickness. Don’t go over a minute, as it might not be rare inside.
• Let the tuna rest for a couple of minutes before slicing. Use a very sharp knife to slice.

Some BOWL variations

• Use other sushi grade fish like salmon, ahi tuna or yellowfin tuna.
• Try it with shrimp or crab meat.
• There are other veggies that can go in this bowl like cucumber, snow peas, avocado, radishes, pineapple and green onions.
• Try a little zingy dressing like some spicy mayo, like my chipotle mayo. It goes great in poke or tataki kinda bowls.

This albacore tuna treat is not only delicious, but is a very healthy and light meal option. With summer coming on, it’s a great easy lunch or dinner you can whip up and enjoy for a new style of bowling. Get all the rainbow colors in your bowl and enjoy your fish “tataki” style!

Albacore Tuna Tataki Bowl, on my Gypsy Plate… enjoy!

Try these other great fish recipes!
Mediterranean Fish with Tapenade
Bahamian Boiled Fish
Mango Salsa Salmon
Maple Pecan Salmon
Psari Plaki (Greek Baked Fish)

Albacore Tuna Tataki Bowl

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

This quick and easy Albacore Tuna Tataki Bowl is full of your favorite Asian flavors. Skip the sushi restaurant and make this great meal in your own home!

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Ingredients

• 1lb Albacore tuna steak

For marinade & dressing

• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 tsp ginger, finely chopped
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp lime juice
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1/4 tsp red chili flakes

For tataki bowl

• 2 cups cooked grains
• 1 mango, diced
• 10 baby carrots or 1 big carrot, cut into match sticks
• 1/4 head of red cabbage, chopped
• 2 cups of edamame
• 1 Tbsp sesame seeds
• 2 Tbsp oil

Instructions

1. Mix all the ingredients of marinade. Reserve 2 tbsp of this marinade as dressing in a small bowl. Use rest to marinate tuna. You can marinate at least 30 minutes to couple of hours in refrigerator.
2. Cook the grains according to the instruction on packet.
3. Chop and dice the veggies and fruit.
4. Heat oil to smoking hot in a pan. Pat dry the fish and place it in a pan.
5. Watch closely as you are searing the fish. Cook 30-45 seconds per side to make it cooked outside and rare in the middle.
6. Rest for couple of minutes and cut into thin slices with sharp knife.
7. Place cooked rice in a bowl. Arrange fish slices along with diced mangoes, chopped red cabbage, edamame. Drizzle the dressing over all of your bowl. Sprinkle sesame seeds generously.

Nutrition Information

Yield 4 Serving Size 1
Amount Per Serving Calories 603Total Fat 22gSaturated Fat 3gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 18gCholesterol 53mgSodium 1264mgCarbohydrates 55gFiber 9gSugar 21gProtein 48g

Nutrition information calculated by Nutritionix.

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Welcome to GypsyPlate! I'm Alpana, former wordwide tour manager and professional caterer, now full time blogger. I love exploring cuisines from around the world, and my recipes have been featured on sites such as MSN, Parade, Brit + Co, CNET and AOL. You can explore my entire collection of sortable recipes in my Recipe Index or learn more about me here.