Published May 1, 1998.
Cook it well past rare, if you like--an hour's soak in extra-virgin olive oil takes the tough out of tuna.
Grilling a beef or salmon steak is pretty close to a snap: Sear the outside over high heat and then, if the steak is thick, give it a few final minutes over indirect heat to finish it. We assumed the same would work for tuna steaks, but we were wrong. This basic method--and various permutations of it--gave us steak after steak that was tough, dry, and fishy tasting, no matter how thick or thin the steak or whether it was cooked rare or medium-rare.
We wanted perfect tuna steaks--beautifully seared on the outside, moist and tender on the inside.
The solution to our problem was olive oil--extra-virgin olive oil, to be exact. We discovered that marinating the fish in extra-virgin olive for at least an hour produced a remarkably moist grilled fish.
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