Seared Tuna Steak on White Beans and Stuff

OK, it's actually seared tuna steak(s) on white beans and grape tomatoes and garlic chips but that was too long a title. As is my goal here, I wanted to try something new each week. This week it's seafood's turn. Confession: I hate seafood. I'm such a picky eater. But I'm working on changing that. The main course then is a tuna steak tastily seared. As an exciting side note: this is the first week where I actually needed only the express lane at Price Chopper to pick up my ingredients. Win! In addition, I'm trying out a "new" camera. So I hope you can handle fewer but better photos.

The first step was to slice up some garlic thin into chips and throw 'em on a skillet to brown over EVOO (extra virgin olive oil). After a few minutes, remove and replace with half an onion sliced and celery diced with red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Having done this kind of preparation on (almost?) every meal so far, this was now easy and fun. I like big knives. Cool!

For the tuna, heat another large skillet. Once it's good and hot, throw the tuna on for a couple minutes to sear one side. I've never cooked tuna before, so this was pretty much all done on faith. Flipping it and turning the heat down to medium, you're supposed to cook from five to seven minutes longer depending on how rare you prefer (not very?). Here's a neat little step: this required the use of an aluminum foil tent over the tuna to keep the heat in. It worked; the tuna was cooked very nicely through with both top and bottom seared beautifully. Nifty!

While all that's going on, I added some chicken broth to the onion/celery mix. Confession #2: white wine could work in addition, but for some reason even I don't understand, I passed. The cannellini (white) beans are added with the grape tomatoes. My grandmother said grape tomatoes are interchangeable with cherry tomatoes, but I have no idea what either tastes like (picky, I told you) so I just bought a box of the grape variety. Lightly boiling these ingredients until they're all soft, I removed them from heat as I removed the tuna. It's worth noting (or is common sense) that simply removing the meat and skillet from heat does not mean it stops cooking. The tuna went from medium to well-done while I was finishing up the veggies.

Put the tuna on top of the beans and tomatoes on a plate and - voilà- instant sophistication. The resulting combination of foods was intense. For me, a lot of new flavors going on. The tuna was surprisingly good, though, like I said, I think I cooked it more well than medium or rare. The beans and sliced garlic were also excellent. I think I'm beginning to like onions and garlic now. Interesting. The grape tomatoes were super soft, exploding sweet juices into your mouth... it was kinda gay. Overall, I can't say as this was my favorite meal, but there were some new taste experiences and, well, you ought to try everything once (and most things twice).