Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Barely cooking dead fish or game seems to be the "in thing" now. Michel Roux's judging "Masterchef" on BBC2, and he's just said, ahead of the judging, "I don't want to see it overcooked. I want it RARE!"

Well, Monsieur Roux, I'll just gut the thing and sling it on a plate for you, you gastro ponce, if you ever eat at mine. Everyone knows the "a la mode" for barely cooked food is that restaurant owners like you love it because they can turn "dishes" round much quicker and don't have to actually cook them.

If someone sent me out a tuna steak that was actually still pink, never mind white, in the middle, I'd fucking call the Health and Safety Executive right there and then.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Gregg the alleged wife-beater's just had to put something in his mouth that honestly looked like cat food - well, no, I wouldn't have even given that to my cat, it looked more like the output of someone's liposuction - and had to nod his acknowledgement to the actual chef because it was "proper".

Which if anything rescued this programme for me.

[radmonkey]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Not a fan of sushi?

[Moonlight Shadow]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Raw fish and meat are gorgeous actually.

[WOM]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

I'd like to say "you're mad", but I've honestly never had raw meat.

[Sean of the Shed]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Steak tartare looks like one of the most unappealing dishes you could ever be expected to eat. Raw mince with a raw egg yolk on it. If you had a raw egg and burger served to you you would shove it up the waiters arse. Calling it a fancy name doesn't make it good food.

[Sean of the Shed]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

With regards to Tuna steak, though, if you cook it any more than rare then you might as well just open a tin of the stuff.

[WOM]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

I was surprised to learn that tinned tuna is actually cooked in the tin you get it in. I mean, I didn't give much thought to how it would have been cooked, but I found that interesting.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Rogin, you are utterly, utterly, utterly wrong.

Tuna should at the very most be seared on the outside.

Fish is perfectly safe raw. It doesn't have any pathogens which need to be killed by heating. It needs to be fresh, but it doesn't need cooking.

Moreover, its protein structure is wholly different from that of meat. It cooks at a much much lower temperature, and loses its texture and much of its flavour almost immediately afterwards.

Since there's no safety-related motive for cooking it, since not doing so doesn't impair the flavour, and since much cooking risks spoiling it completely, standards practice is to cook it very little, if at all.

The Japanese, who know more about Tuna than anybody, consider it an insult to the fish to do any more than sear it.

It's nothing at all to do with quick turnover (fish only takes a couple of minutes anyway), and Health and Safety would laugh you out of the place. Before calling you a cardboard-mouthed philistine.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Not a fan of sushi?

Yes. But sushi's sushi. Or indeed sushami. Thin slivers of uncooked fish that have most times been tendered in lime juice and salt. Not big slavering lumps of pink uncooked fish bits that have just been half warmed up but left uncooked in an oven. There's a massive difference.

[Crusoe]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

I love sushi. Toro - the fatty tuna belly - is just delicious, melts on the tongue. One of my treats if my wife's away is to get a selection of salmon and tuna sushi dishes and a bottle of chilled sake on a Sunday night.

I like steak tartare too, but it's hard to get (and to be fair I couldn't eat it more than once every year or so). I was refused it in Paris (comically surly waitress seemed convinced I would hate it) and only grudgingly served it in Brussels by a very nervous waiter. Clearly Brits abroad don't have a great track record when it comes to reacting to unusual foods.

[Crusoe]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Rogin, what about tuna carpaccio? Or does that count as sushi for this thread?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Toro, uncooked cold fish tastes revolting . I don't care how far to the edge people cooking it have taken it to Health and Safety Standards, safe or not, or for what possible reasons people eat it, who can't afford a cooker.

It's vile. It's like tripe, which they've almost just finally banned in the UK.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Most sushi(mi) is cured, with lime juice, salt or even just being allowed to sit for a while. Not the same as ther bits in the middle of a pink and uncooked tuna steak. Euurgh.

[willie1foot]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

I quite like tripe.... and sushi.

Each to their own I suppose. Christ, some people are boring eaters.

[G-Man]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

The Japanese, who know more about Tuna than anybody, consider it an insult to the fish to do any more than sear it.

I'm sure the recently murdered tuna are touched by the Japanese concern for their dignity.

Steak Tartar is brilliant, by the way.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

I've tried plenty of raw fish (real sashimi/sushi is not tenderised in salt and lime juice, you're confusing it with ceviche) and it has been delicious all the way, probably the best way you could eat fish really if you want to taste it without it being drown in sauces.

Steak tartare is excellent, I regularly enjoy one when in Geneva, with nice buttered toasts. With all the spices in it, it tastes nothing like most of those who never had it expect it to taste anyway.

Stick to baked beans and overcooked beef, bunch of philistines...

[Anton Gramscescu]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Crusoe wrote:

Toro - the fatty tuna belly

I sense a name change coming on...

[San Bernardhinault]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

My better half made a lovely tuna ceviche for dinner. Rogin is in a world of wrong.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

a) sAshimi
b) as MS says, it's not tenderised. Some fish is marinated first to firm it up - mackerel for instance. But you don't tenderise it. And tuna, particularly, is served totally untreated in Sushi and Sashimi. I'm sorry, but you basically don't know what you're talking about.
c) AG - yep, that was part of the original rationale for my moniker.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

probably the best way you could eat fish really if you want to taste it without it being drown in sauces

And you really did wolf it down that way, did you, without "any" sauces? No rice drenched in soy sauce to wrap it with? No seaweed and bread wraps to hide its gut-wrenching flavour inside?

Just the whole raw fish, as the bear would eat it, off the fucking skeleton, down in one?

You really are the man of the mountains.

[Guest]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

I don't suppose cooking affects the mercury content of fish...

[San Bernardhinault]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Tuna is lovely rare, and is chewy and livery and quite nasty overcooked. It is right up at the top of foodstuffs that must not be overcooked.

I actually like my salmon pretty rare, in which I'm in a sort of minority; but tuna? That's like having a fantastic piece of fillet steak and boiling it for 2 hours.

[Tactical Genius]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Steak Tartre is disgusting.

I can eat sushi for the reason Rogin outlines.

Half-cooked food is definitly something that only posh (who can afford fresh premium cuts of meat and fish) indulge in.
The working classes (of every hue) don't trust the butchers and fishmongers in the hood so cook the food until its almost burnt.

I too love tripe (known as Shaki in Yoruba) and never ate steak in my life (i doubt what was in the steak and kidney pies we got from Bejam was actually steak) until i was in my 20's.

I think people who rave about half-cooked food don't really like it themselves but pretend to show how sophisticated they are.

Emporers new clothes.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Who the FUCK wants "rare" tuna?

Tactical Genius wrote:

I can eat sushi for the reason Rogin outlines.

But the reasons he outlines are FACTUALLY WRONG.

Half-cooked food is definitly something that only posh (who can afford fresh premium cuts of meat and fish) indulge in.
The working classes (of every hue) don't trust the butchers and fishmongers in the hood so cook the food until its almost burnt.

But cooking fish doesn't affect anything that is altered by buying "premium" produce. it doesn't become tenderer, it doesn't become safer, and if it's not fresh it's equally dangerous whether burnt to a crisp or raw.