Marinated Tuna for a Barbecue with Hot Dipping Sauce

Fresh caught tuna served with dipping sauce (soya, lime, honey and chili/chilli) 

My husband went out deep-sea fishing the other day, and hooked himself a tuna. We were rather hoping for one, but then when proudly bore it home, the question became: how should we prepare it?

I took to Google Plus to have the question answered, and got a range of answers, from "eat it with ugali" (ugali is similar to grits or putu/pap) from +tom kelemet who lives in the Masai Mara, while +J D James advocated for a Thai (Red) Panang curry and also suggested we make sashimi (which, though similar to sushi, is just the plain raw fish) for starters. As for +Wolf Weber, all he said was that he had seen the tuna (on a Hangout) and "fell in love with it immediately :)))"

It was, however, a lovely summer's day here in South Africa, and so my husband figured he'd best barbecue - or as we call it here, braai - the fish. He has extensive experience with braaing fish; in his younger years, he once helped build an extension on a house in Henties Bay in Namibia, for which he and his University friends were paid in beer, and were required to go fish for their food. Although it sounds like a harsh regime, to this day it remains one of the highlights of his life and the friendships developed there remain firm to this day. However, as a direct result of their days spent fishing, he has a strongly developed aversion to white wine, caused mainly by the fact that, in the wee hours of black morning, wading waist-deep into icy cold Atlantic ocean waves was only made bearable through the injudicious slugging down of copious amounts of cheap, sweet white wine to stave off the inevitable shivers.

His fish (and other) braaing skills remain the stuff of legend amongst his friends - as denoted by the fact that in a overtly masculine society such as South Africa, they tend to hand the braai tongs over to him when it comes to braaing anything. In fact, I had grown so used to that, that it was for me most interesting and peculiar when I mentioned something to that effect to another South African in Saudi Arabia, and Fem pulled me aside to tell me "Never come between a man and his braai". 

Apart from experience, one of Fem's main secrets to his braai success is that he always marinates the meat, though most of the time he pulls the marinade recipe out of his head and it is generally dependent on what is available in the cupboards. The tuna marinade was no exception, except that I was around to note it as it was being prepared. This amount of marinade is perfect for a good 50cm or 20 inch long tuna:

Tuna fish do not have scales, which makes them rather delightful to prepare 

Marinade for Tuna:

Olive Oil - about half a cup

Soya sauce - 1 to 2 TBs

White pepper - about 1/2 tsp

Lemon juice - 1-2 tsps

Salt - pinch of 

Garlic - finely chopped - 2-3 cloves

Mix all the above ingredients together. I'm afraid to say my husband doesn't measure anything, but just 'eye-balls' it (that is, judges quantities visually - if need be, tasting the mixture at times to ensure it is not too sweet, salty or sour), so the above quantities are rough estimates. He marinated the inside of the fish, to keep the moisture in. We'd advocate leaving the marinade in for at least half an hour. With fish in particular, however, you want to get them cooked as soon as possible after hoiking them out of the water. 

Before braaing, remove the head and tail:

Freshly caught tuna

Place the tuna on the braai, and barbecue until done, that is, when you can easily 'flake' the skin.  

Fresh tuna, marinated and braaied 

The tuna is ready when you can 'flake' the flesh easily 

We decided to eat the tuna with a leafy green salad, so went out into our monkey-proof organic vegetable garden to pick some green leaves,  such as spinach, which we interspersed with a variety of herbs and even edible flowers such as nasturtium, borage and heart's-ease.  We served the fish for the children simply, with some lemon juice on the side for my eldest son who, like his mother, loves sour-tasting foods. 

Tuna fish and salad 

However, my husband and I love our hot chillies. Like +Wolf Revels whose community,  Everything Spicy is a boon for anyone who loves to propogate their own chilis/chillies, we are real "Pepperheads". I love the community for its growing repertoire of recipes; Wolf used to work as a chef, and his passion for growing his own is contagious. 

The dipping sauce is one we were introduced to in Australia. My dear friend, Bridget (who has forever and a day been known as Beeble to me), emigrated there from South Africa and we visited her and her family there a few years ago. One of our highlights was a visit to Lady Elliot Island in the Great Barrier Reef, and we drove up from Brisbane, where they live, all the way north. 

Willa Cather wrote in My Antonia of a train journey: "The only thing very noticeable about Nebraska was that it was still, all day long, Nebraska." I felt the same about gum trees in Australia or snow, when I first encountered it in northern climes. It was not so much the fact of its existence that surprised, as the fact that there is so much of something in existence that rocks you back on your heels. I think people can become addicted to the unexpected and that is why travel is so thrilling. Other countries are always so exciting and your own so yawn-inducing, until, of course, you have a foreign friend to visit, and then you may discover the truth of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s aphorism that, “It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.” 

With Beeble and family on Lady Elliot island in the Great Barrier Reef

Now, I've known Beeble since University days, she is one of those true 'soul friends' - you know, the kind who you figure "know your soul". As fate would have it, we even had our first-born sons at the same time, and Mike and Faran have been firm friends ever since, despite the distances between them. In fact, my favourite story is of the time the Tooth Fairy was late arriving, and Faran took this with equanimity, philosophically stating that, "My twin friend, Mikie, must have lost a tooth in Australia, and you know - it's a very long way between Saudi and Australia". 

Beeble, Mikie, Kathryn, Faran

Now, Beeble has always loved her food, and it is accordingly most gratifying to cook for her, and the two of us were both great vegetable lovers; we first really started interacting at University when the two of us would find ourselves standing at the University Dining Hall, asking for seconds - not of the meat, but of the vegetables. However, though she loved eating out, and was a fantastic guide to restaurants in the area as a result, she had never really cooked much at all before they left to go to Australia, and her unusual request to the law firm at which she was a partner was simply that, instead of an expensive present, she wanted everyone there to make up a book of absolutely basic recipes, such as: how to cook an egg; how to roast a chicken. She has long outgrown it now, having become a superb cook in a land in which eating out is extremely expensive, but she said that it was an absolute life-saver when they first went over to Brisbane.

Now, when we visited her, we took over my brother Nils Kure's book, Living With Leopards, as a thank you gift, since she and her husband, Gavin, were great lovers of our Bush-veld, and so for them, this was a delightful gift. She, in return, decided to share something that was to her uniquely Australian, and since we all love our food, for her what had stood out was the fusion food that is greatly inspired by the proximity Australia has to Asia, and particularly Thailand.

We have thoroughly enjoyed the book she gave us (and will update later with what it is called when I can track it down), but were particularly inspired by the dipping sauces, especially those utilising chilli. This is our favourite one we learnt from the book - though I am afraid to say that, yet again, we pretty much eye-ball the quantities.

What I love about this sauce is that it is utterly simple, and yet adheres to the concept of combining together sour (lime juic), salty (soy sauce - we use the thin variety), sweet (honey) and hot (finely chopped up chilli). We tend to place it in the microwave for a very short time to help the honey in particular blend with the other ingredients - so warm it not even to tepid - that seems to help a bit. Oh, and for the record, the chillies depicted are chopped a bit large, we do advocate much finer chopping for both aesthetic and taste reasons. 

Dipping Sauce Recipe

Soya sauce 

Lime juice 

Honey 

Finely chopped chillies 

Mix together to ensure the sour, salty, sweet and hot come together in perfect harmony. Obviously, the chillies in particular are to taste. 

Soy sauce, lime juice, honey and chopped-up chillies make a perfect dipping sauce for tuna 

So, there you have it, from the West Coast of Namibia to the East Coast of Australia, with inspiration from Thailand - a wonderful, simple, fusion-inspired dish.