My parents gave Joe a grill for his birthday, which was timed perfectly to prepare us for last week’s heat wave, and we made exciting Friday night plans to put it together. Sure, it’s a lot different than what we may have been doing on a Friday night 5 years ago, but I’ll take constructing a new culinary feature of our home over a crowded bar any day. The directions read that it should only take us 45 minutes, so I took our dinner out to marinate figuring we’d be out back cooking it up in no time.

The directions and diagrams were just as easy to understand as hieroglyphics, and we had a set in English, French and Spanish; I was convinced it may actually be easier for me to grasp them if I read them in another language. With a lot of tiny parts fitting into tight spaces, it was a job for small hands and Joe and I worked as a team, him getting the parts ready and reading directions as I manipulated various screwdrivers in an effort to build what would make our dinner that evening. Two hours and several liters of sweat later, our hunger was about to take over as we admired the ½ of a grill put together in our living room. Thoughts of our grilled ginger tuna steak were the only thing that kept us pushing through the heat.

Grilled Ginger Tuna Steak

• 2-8 oz. tuna steaks
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon crystallized ginger, minced
• ½ cup orange juice
• 2/3 cup rice wine vinegar
• ¼ cup tamari (dark soy sauce)
• 2 teaspoons sesame seeds

In a large bowl, whisk together garlic, ginger and liquid ingredients to create marinade. Place tuna steak in a glass baking dish and pour marinade over each piece. Marinade for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through. Heat grill to medium-high and cook steaks on each side, time dependent on preference for tenderness. For rare steaks, cook about 1 – 2 minutes on each side. Meanwhile, reduce marinade in a saucepan. Slice tuna into thin strips and top with cooked marinade and sesame seeds.

With almost no fat and high protein, tuna steaks are a delicious and healthy option. More filling than other fish, tuna is on the hearty side and still not overwhelming on your stomach. Cooking time depends on your preferences, and I like mine on the rare side; the contrast in temperature as the warm exterior encases a cool, red center adds to the flavor of the fish. The crystallized ginger highlights the marinade, and it’s such a good ingredient to have on hand. It infuses the dish with just as much flavor as the produce aisle version without the guilt associated with wasting leftover fresh ginger. Its sugary coating disintegrates into the other liquids, working together with the sweetness of the orange juice to cut through the rice vinegar. If you can’t find tamari, regular soy sauce works fine; however, consider upping the amount as tamari offers a deeper flavor.

Reducing the marinade is a great way to not waste any aspect of the recipe, and it does get stronger as it cooks down. Still, I love sweet sauces with fish, and I whisked together 1 part honey to 3 parts rice wine vinegar and added a good bit of red pepper flakes to dip my tuna pieces in. While I ate mine as a sit-down meal, this is a great recipe as a fancy yet sneakily easy dish for an appetizer. Simply slice the tuna thin and serve on a nice platter accompanied by your marinade and sweet dipping sauce.

A quickly cooked tuna steak with handsome grill marks was a refreshing and replenishing dinner for a sticky summer night. It gave us the energy to actually finish putting our grill together, so that next time maybe we can grill the tuna outdoors instead of on a hot, cast iron grill pan in our kitchen. The 45 minutes advised for assembly actually meant over 2 hours in any of the direction handbooks, English, French or Spanish.

Casey Ann is a local foodie and blogger. Check out her recipes and reviews at www.cleanpl8.com.