Sasha's Kitchen: Wasabi-Crusted Tuna with Orange-Ginger Sauce

I have been meaning to try encrusting fish with wasabi powder for some time, since I have tried some delicious wasabi crusted fish at restaurants. I was originally considering using salmon, but I realized that the asian flair would work better with tuna (in my opinion anyhow). I decided to encrust the fish with a mixture of wasabi and Japanese style panko bread crumbs, which are the best kind of bread crumbs to use for just about anything. I paired the tuna with a carrot-ginger sauce, to which i also added a pinch of wasabi powder for a bit more intense flavor. This was a really rewarding meal - not that difficult to make, but a really spectacular culinary result that makes it sound much more involved than it actually was. I love the way the various Asian and American influences jive with the tuna in this dish. It was a great combination of flavors!

Sasha's Wasabi Crusted Tuna with Orange Ginger Sauce & Paprika Potatoes

For the Tuna:

2 medium-sized tuna steaks (I used blue fin tuna)

1 T rice vinegar1 T wasabi powder
Panko breadcrumbs
1/4 tsp soy sauce
1 T water
1/2 T diced garlic

For the Sauce:
3 minced shallots
1 T minced ginger
2 T orange zest
1 cup dry white wine (cooking wine is fine)
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
pinch of wasabi powder

For the Potatoes
New potatoes
sugar snap peas
2 T of paprika
1/4 cup orange juice

To prepare this dish, combine all of the ingredients for the fish marinade except for the panko and mix well. Coat the tuna steaks with this mixture, before dredging them on all sides so they are covered with the panko. Cook on a grill pan with some canola oil on both sides until they are cooked the way you like it (personally, I prefer mine to be medium), which depends on the thickness of the tuna steaks.


To make the sauce, combine the shallots, ginger and orange zest with a bit of olive or canola oil and cook until the shallots are soft over medium heat for a few minutes. Add the white wine and cook for about 5 minutes, allowing the wine to reduce (the alcohol will burn away). Add the orange juice and heavy cream and cook on low to medium heat, simmering, until the sauce is reduced and has thickened a bit (this isn't an incredibly thick sauce, as I did not want to use butter or cornstarch). When the sauce is done, add the sesame oil, soy sauce and wasabi to taste. The sesame oil is key - it adds another wonderful Asian flavor to this dish.

To make the potatoes, cut up some new potatoes and add to a pot with the sugar snap peas. Cook in some canola oil with plenty of paprika and a bit of orange juice until the potatoes are done - which could take about 25 minutes.