Barbecued Tuna with Agrodolce Onions

Ingredients

• 4 x 180g tuna steaks, cut 2cm thick

• Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing

and drizzling

• Sea salt

• Agrodolce Onions

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 3 small red onions, cut into 6

wedges

• 2⁄3 cup (150ml) good-quality red wine

vinegar

• 1⁄4 cup (60ml) dry white wine

• 1 tablespoon currants

• 1 teaspoon raisins

• 1 tablespoon pine nuts, toasted in a dry

frying

pan until golden brown

• 40g caster (superfine) sugar

• 1 tablespoon fish sauce

Method

1. About 30 minutes beforehand, remove the fish from the fridge

and let it come to room temperature.

2. For the agrodolce onions, heat the olive oil in a saucepan over

medium-low heat. Add the onions and cook gently for 5 minutes,

then add the remaining ingredients with 1⁄4 cup (60ml) of water and

stir well. Turn the heat up to medium and cook until reduced by

about three- quarters, with a beautiful sweet-sour flavour. Remove

from the heat and leave to cool to room temperature.

3. Heat the barbecue to hot and clean the grill bars. Brush the tuna

with olive oil and sprinkle liberally with salt. Put it on the grill at a

45-degree angle to the grill bars and cook for 2 minutes, then rotate

to 45 degrees in the opposite direction and cook, still on the same

side, for a further 2 minutes – this will give the fish nice criss-cross grill

marks. Now turn the tuna over and cook for a final 3 minutes.

4. Place the tuna on a chopping board and cut each steak in half at an

angle to expose its beautiful, rare centre. Place the fish on four plates

and spoon the agrodolce onions over the top. Give it a good grind of

pepper and a drizzle of olive oil, then serve.

Notes

Recipes by Neil Perry, Qantas Creative Director - Food, Beverage & Service. Images and text from Everything I Love to Cook by Neil Perry. Photography by Petrina Tinslay; Murdoch Books.