Rare Grilled Tuna & Salsa Verde Salad

We've had a couple days of proper, heavy snow. I've never seen such heavy snow (given that I grew up in a sub tropical country) and these past couple of days have been something else. The picture to the left was taken from my bedroom window this morning.

Still, I craved something light and fresh. I am currently a lady of leisure, as I have two weeks between jobs and the temptation is all to great to just sit around and eat a lot. As I have mentioned before, the guilt does get the better of me. I've made use of this rare time off to properly go to the shops (instead of dashing round in a grump after work, post 7pm) and I came up trumps; a tuna steak! I haven't had one in a long while.

Tuna is quite a meaty fish, and the fresh steaks are a much different beast to the tinned. It's almost sacrilege in my book to cook the steaks anything other than rare, so this is what I did.

Rare Grilled Tuna & Salsa Verde Salad

Serves 1 hungry person

For the Salsa Verde:

Small bunch of parsley, coriander and mint

2 tsp capers, rinsed

1 anchovy, chopped finely

1 small clove of garlic, sliced

1 small green chilli, chopped and deseeded

The juice of half a lime

Extra virgin olive oil

Finely chop the herbs and the capers, and add to a mortar and pestle. Pound lightly until the herbs are well amalgamated, then add the anchovy, garlic, lime and chilli. Pound even more, adding enough extra virgin olive oil to make a smooth sauce.

For the salad:

1 tuna steak, about 200gr

2 handfuls of mixed leaves

2 cooked (not pickled) beetroot, sliced into quarters

A handful of baby tomatoes (Pomodorino are the tastiest I've found)

1/2 a small red onion, sliced thinly

A handful of cooked chickpeas

2 tbsp olives

Easy really - get a griddle pan really smoking hot, oil the tuna steak and slap it on. Depending on how thick it is, cook until rare. I think mine was about a minute on each side, if not less. Rest for 10 minutes, then slice across the grain and season with salt and pepper. Throw all the salad ingredients onto a plate, place the tuna slices on top, and drizzle with the salsa verde. I also drizzled the salad with a bit more olive oil.