Grilled Tuna with Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Man, talk about a summer recipe. Everything about this dish screams sun and outdoors grilling and skimpy bikinis. The Husband especially screams about that last part.

Grilled Tuna with Tomato and Cucumber Salad

TOTAL TIME: 25 MIN SERVINGS: 4

Ingredients

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 1/2 pounds tomatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 large cucumber—peeled, seeded and sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1 cup torn basil leaves
1 1/2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon hot water
Four 6-ounce tuna steaks
2 teaspoons dried oregano

Directions:

Light a grill. In a large bowl, whisk the olive oil with the red wine vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Add the tomatoes, scallions, cucumber, red onion and basil and toss to coat. Refrigerate the salad. In a small bowl, whisk the mustard with the balsamic vinegar and blend in the hot water. Season with salt and pepper. Brush the tuna steaks with olive oil and season with salt, pepper and the oregano. Grill the tuna over a hot fire until lightly charred on the outside and rare inside, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to a carving board. Mound the tomato salad on plates. Thickly slice the tuna steaks and transfer to the plates. Drizzle the tuna with the balsamic dressing and serve.

And in addition to this being really good, it's pretty healthy, which is a key factor in what we've been eating lately. We got the tuna steaks frozen at Target and the directions on the package tell you everything you need to know about cooking them. Fish isn't scary, it's tasty! Embrace the fish, people. The thing about tuna, however, is that it's best cooked rare to medium-rare. So far, we have been mostly unsuccessful in getting the fish to that level. We always overcook, and part of it is that I always say, "That looks a little too raw for me in the middle; why don't you cook it for about another two minutes," and then when it comes off the grill it's always cooked all the way through. I've got to remedy that. And tuna steaks do not taste anything like tuna from a can. It's completely different and if done right, not nearly as fishy. Good fish shouldn't taste overly fishy anyway.

The tomato salad in the recipe would be good as a side item all by itself. Paired with the fish it just really completes the whole recipe. I halved the recipe for the salad and only cut two slices of onion to chop up. A whole onion is a lot for this recipe, and we're not huge onion people. I believe I used the full amount of mustard-balsamic glaze to go on top of the fish and it wasn't too strong, but you do have to be careful so as not to completely cover up the taste of the fish all together.

This just really came out well. We would definitely have this again!