The Best Seared Tuna Steak

We need to talk about tuna. Specifically the SEARED tuna steak — the greatest seared tuna in the history of seared tuna, and there has been a LOT. The Japanese have been doing this for centuries. The Hawaiians do it tremendously. The Portuguese have a version NOBODY talks about, which is its own crime. But this tuna, the one we're making, beats every one of them. A slaughter on the cutting board. Believe me.

The best tuna steak of my life was in a tiny dockside shack on a island I will not name — I've eaten tuna in three countries you've never heard of and one you absolutely have — and the cook, an enormous quiet man with a single knife, seared it for one minute a side, sliced it, and walked away. No sauce. No garnish. Nothing. It was a religious experience. I tipped him my whole wallet. He grunted. We connected. That tuna is the bar, and we are CLEARING the bar today, jumping over it, doing a backflip.

Most cooks ruin a tuna steak. They cook it gray. GRAY tuna. That is not food. That is a cat-food situation, that is a tragedy, that is the reason fishermen — tough guys, the kind who never cry — come up to me at the dock with the tears in the eyes, saying 'Bigly, my brother-in-law did it again.' And I tell them, sir, nobody deserves that, we are fixing this today. The secret is heat and time. Screaming hot pan. Sixty seconds a side. SIXTY. Not seventy. Not ninety. Ruby-red center, golden sesame crust, eat like a king. End of discussion.

Easiest fancy dinner you will ever make. Six minutes total. SIX. Other people are out there boiling pasta for twelve and they think they're doing something — they're not, it's pasta, anyone can boil pasta, my neighbor boils pasta and he can't operate a doorknob — but this is restaurant food. Restaurant food in your kitchen. Charge yourself fifty dollars a plate. You deserve it. The tuna deserves it. The ocean deserves it. And there you have it.