Seared Tuna with Avocado

Hey, I have a question for you.

Am I awesome, or am I really awesome? Because I’m having trouble decide. XD

Unfortunately I am not as awesome a photographer as I am awesome in general. Apparently this is the best picture I can get.

I was going to do yesterday, but I started grilling late in the afternoon and did not have the appetite for a second meal. So, I kept my tuna on ice overnight, like so. At $23/pound (it has to be sushi grade) I wasn’t going to take any chances.

The ingredients: Olive oil, sesame oil, salt, pepper, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, cilantro, garlic, Jalapeno, ginger, lime. Oh, and my beautiful Tuna, of course. <3 The recipe doesn’t actually call for vinegar, but it does call for a full lime, and I only had half left. (I forgot the avocado in this picture.)

Mix, mix!

Mix, mix!

The recipe wants you to just salt & pepper the fish and sear it like that. I figured it would be good to toss in the sauce, so I did. What the hell do I know, though. I also cut my block in half (2 5oz pieces).

It sears! I seared for probably less than a minute per side. It is easy to tell when you should stop, since you can see on the side how much of it has been cooked. It’s like a progress bar, really. The aim is to just sear the surface, while leaving the middle raw. If you don’t have sushi grade fish then you should probably cook it all the way through. After it was about done I tossed the sauce in there.

If you’re awesome like me, you can take out the flesh of an avocado from the skin in one piece.

Then slice it up and plate! This is actually really simple. Takes maybe half an hour to do. The only difficult thing about this recipe is being able to afford sushi grade fish, haha.

Welp, it was really good, but the soy sauce was a bit overpowering. Must remember 3T is too much next time.

Lamb Ribs; or, The Tears and Suffering of Innocent Baby Animals ^____^

Tears and Suffering taste good, real good. Very tender.

This was actually an impulse buy (I don’t usually eat lamb), but I am very happy with it.

By the way, the entry I made in moon language just expresses my resolution to practice moon language (and French) more often, so that they don’t deteriorate. I will try to keep English language posts at a majority, though, as that is a language common to almost all my readers, even ones that understand moon language or French. Actually, I think wordpress.com may be blocked in China.

It looks more charred than it actually is. In fact, the thicker pieces were still rare.

Ingredients: Rosemary, garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper, and 4 pieces of Tears and Suffering. I went and bought the most expensive bottle of balsamic vinegar I could find, but it was still only $12. It’s hard to be gourmet when you do all your shopping at Ralph’s… This now brings my vinegar collection to 6 bottles (I also have some rice vinegar which I’ve been experimenting with to get a peanut salad dressing)…

Chop garlic and rosemary finely.

Combine.

Add olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I used 2T and 4T. This balsamic vinegar is a lot thicker than the other bottle I have, probably on account of all that fig paste they put in there. Oh yeah, in case you can’t read the bottle, it says “Autumn Fig”.

Seal lamb chops with marinade in a plastic bag.

It is very important that you arrange the lamb chops in a 69 position.

翌日…

Oh my what a fine day it is to be grilling on my BALCONY!

Since I’ll be moving out soon, I want to make as much use of my balcony as possible. I own a grill and I’ve probably used it no more than 5 times. This must change!

Form a pyramid with the charcoal.

Oooooooooo.

While the fire burnt, I washed the grill, which had lain dirtily in a corner since the Yosemite trip last fall. Washing a grill is one of the worst things in existence, right up there with hernias and local truncation error analysis. Because, you know, it’s not a surface. You can’t just scrub it as you would a dirty plate. You have to get into each bar. It’s awful.

After the fire goes out, push the stack over to let the charcoal sit uniformly over the surface. The charcoals are not all grey but that is okay. They will continue to burn.

This is pretty fun, I have to say. I could do this every weekend. I could even have friends over. But they have to bring the beer.

Close up. I have placed the meatier part of the ribs in the centre where it is hotter. Don’t mind the other pieces of meat sitting on the grill. I am just testing out my kalbi recipe. There will be another entire post about that.

I also grilled some vegetables after this was over. I like this picture a lot for some reason. It’s like… art… or something.

Conclusion: lamb is very tender. We should all increase our consumption of baby animals.

Failure

L’autre jour, j’ai fait pleurer une fille en classe pour la première fois. Je demande habituellement des volontaires pour résoudre des problèmes devant la classe, mais personne n’a voulu la faire (? this sounds weird), donc j’ai choisi une victime par un processus aléatoire. (J’ai proposé une gamme des nombres desquels les étudiants ont choisi, qui ont déterminé le siège où la victime s’est assise–mais ils ne le savient pas.) La victime ne savait pas comment resoudre la probleme, et, succombant à son inquiétude, a commencé à pleurer… Merde…