Easy Oriental Part 12 – Baked Centrepiece Tuna for Six.

This post really is a triumph of form over function. I was in the fish shop last week and they had some whole (small) tuna on sale. I’ve never cooked a whole tuna before. I planned to smoke the fish but found that it wouldn’t fit into my smoker. So, instead of cutting off the head and tail, I decided it would photograph quite well and I could bake it in an oriental style. It proved to be very simple to prepare and delicious to eat. A worthy and impressive participant in the Easy Oriental series. This makes a great centrepiece, always useful when serving Oriental. 

Some authentic oriental looking ingredients.

Ingredients

• One whole tuna about 2 kilo weight
• 1 generous handful of spring onions
• 12 or so dried Chinese mushrooms
• 3 cm or 1 inch of ginger
• 2 stalks lemongrass
• 1 hot red chilli
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons of chilli oil (1 for the fish, 1 for the noodles)
• 1 tablespoon of rice wine
• 2 teaspoons of sesame oil
• 5 portions of dried noodles

The mushrooms need to be rehydrated. Do this first. They take about 20 minutes.

Next, cut off the side fins and cut some diagonal slices into the flesh of the tuna.

Ouch, slicing the tuna feels a bit brutal, even though it’s dead.

Slice the vegetables, mushrooms and lemongrass into 5cm (2 inch) pieces.

There’s lots of slicing involved in oriental cookery. This simple dish is no exception.

Lay out some tinfoil and place a layer of lemongrass. Lay the fish on top. Stuff the exposed slits in the fish and also the cavity with more of the ingredients, like in the photo below. Pour on the chilli oil and the sesame oil. You will have plenty of onions and mushrooms left over.

A well stuffed oriental tuna. Drizzling the oil on top for a bit of heat.

Fold over the tinfoil to form a tent. Place it in a 200º C (400º F) oven for 20 minutes. Cook the noodles and reserve. Put some oil in the wok and fry the remaining ginger, spring onions and mushrooms, adding the rice wine as you go until the spring onions go a hot green colour.

I love the term “hot green’. It describes the spring onions very well.

Add the noodles to the wok and add the soy sauce and chilli oil. Heat through while turning the noodles. This exercise will rival half an hour bench pressing in the gym.

Stir those noodles. I don’t care how heavy they are, they need stirring.

Plate up the fish on a big serving dish, discarding the lemongrass but pouring the collected juices over the fish. It looks great (If you ignore the eyes and those sharp teeth)!

It’s a bit of a show stopper when this gets placed on the table.

Carefully fillet the fish and serve it and the other bits and pieces with the noodles.

Stylish and extremely tasty. The baked tuna is fantastic. That chopstick rest really is bordering on the rude.

We served six with this lovely tuna. We all went back for more. Centrepiece tuna was a big success.