I was feeling inspired by two things last night: fava beans and tuna. Knowing me, this led to far too many ideas and flavours all being thrown together, but I think it worked out all right in the end.
The easiest way to eat fresh fava beans requires the most work. You need to remove the beans from their pods and then blanch them. Once this is done, you can remove the fava beans from their tough outer shells, or if you like you can leave them on... it's not going to kill you. The beans can be eaten raw or cooked up any way you can imagine.
Beautiful albacore tuna loin.
I decided to create a crust on top of my tuna steaks, that I let sit and marinate into the tuna for a couple hours before cooking.
I ground together: sesame oil, tahini, pine nuts, cashews, sesame seeds, salt, pepper, basil, ginger, and juniper berries. The juniper berries can have a strong flavour if you're not used to it, but it worked really well with the tuna and the other flavours.
Before and after.
I had put the fava beans in with the potatoes for the last few minutes to cook a little. Then I tossed both together with a lemon, dijon, asiago, basil, chive, and olive oil dressing. Topped it off with toasted pine nuts and sesame seeds.
I threw the tuna into a very hot oven once the potatoes were done. After a couple minutes I switched to the broiler. I wanted the tuna to have a nice brown crust on top, but didn't want to over cook the fish.
You should make this.
