This is one of my favorite preparations in the kitchen, so today I want to tell you in detail what is a tataki, how to prepare it and I will leave you six recipes so that when you do it at home, it turns out perfect.
This way of cooking food has its origin in Japanese cuisineand is perfect for cooking some types of fish and can also be used for meats, especially red meats.
The elaboration of a Tataki consists of marking an ingredient over very high heat., so that it cooks and browns on the outside, but leaving the inside almost raw. When you cut it into small pieces, you can see the different textures of the most and least cooked part, resulting in a delicious dish.
He Tataki is therefore not the name of a dish, but of a typical culinary technique of Japanese cuisine.. It consists of cooking a piece of meat or fish on a very hot griddle or pan, letting it brown on the outside but with the inside almost raw and very juicy.
This technique is attributed to some samurai who in the 17th century saw Europeans cooking food on a grill at very high temperatures, evolving the recipe for cooking with fish. Although he Tataki is mainly associated with fish, especially tuna and salmon.can also be used to prepare beef recipes.
How to make a good tataki
There are three keys to preparing a good tataki: The first is the temperature of the grill, which must be very high so that the cooking time of the meat or fish is very short. The result will be juicy and very delicious pieces of meat or fish, roasted on the outside and practically raw on the inside.
The second key is the quality of the ingredient which must be very fresh since we are going to cook it very little. In the case of fish and due to the risk of anisakis, it is advisable to freeze it for 48 hours and then slowly defrost it in the refrigerator so that it remains practically as if it were fresh, but without risks. In the case of meat, we will look for tender cuts that are not tough when undercooked, preferably loin or sirloin type.
The third key is prior marinating, which achieves greater interior juiciness and the penetration of flavors that will be absorbed by the meat or fish, making them much more intense after grilling. It is essential in the case of fish tataki but it also works very well with meat tataki.
Finally, we must leave rest the tataki a little and then serve it filleted, mainly in not very thick rectangular pieces, one centimeter or one and a half centimeters thick. For this reason it is good to cut the product that we want to prepare on tataki into an ingot shaped like a rectangular prism approximately 4x4x10 centimeters that will make it easier for us to brown it and cut it later.
The marinade for the tataki
There is no single marinade for making tatakis, but in general the most common thing is to make a sauce for soy sauce-based marinade, or ponzu sauce. To that sauce, we can add ginger, garlic, lime or lemon juice (even orange) and some aromatic herbs such as oregano, thyme or rosemary.
You can also add mirin, sake or rice vinegarsesame oil or any other ingredient that we like, depending on the main ingredient and the final flavor we want to achieve.
Summary of steps to make a good tataki
The first step is cut meat or fish into rectangular pieces so that they cook evenly. Next, we let the ingredient marinate for an hour in the sauce we have chosen, for example soy with grated ginger, garlic and lemon juice, stirring so that it coats all sides.
We heat the iron a lot and when it is very very hot, we brown the main ingredient for about 15 to 30 seconds on each side, so that its exterior is well sealed, while the center part will be rare and very juicy.
When it comes to plating, we can pass the piece once golden through sesame seeds and then we proceed to fillet it, serving it on a platter with a bowl with more sauce and some salad, for example wakame seaweed.
Six tataki recipes to enjoy with this technique
Tuna tataki with ponzu and wakame sauce
To make this tuna tataki with ponzu sauce recipe, we start by preparing the homemade Ponzu sauce. We make a quick dashi broth, mixing the ingredients and bringing to a boil. As soon as it starts to cook, turn off the heat, add the dehydrated tuna flakes and let it cool. We strain and ready to mix with the soy, lemon and ginger and so on. get a homemade ponzu sauce. We can also use commercial Ponzu sauce.
We cut the tuna into two ingots and put them in the Ponzu sauce, letting the fish marinate in the refrigerator for an hour. Once marinated, we put an iron on the fire letting it heat up very well, for at least ten minutes. When the griddle is very very hot, we mark each drained tuna ingot, allowing the surface to brown, but leaving the inside raw.
We pass the tuna ingot through the mixture of white and black sesame seeds Squeezing a little so that they stick together, we cut the ingot into half-cm-thick slices, leaving them stacked one on top of the other. We serve our tuna tataki on a plate, adding a little more ponzu sauce on the bottom and accompany it with wakame seaweed salad. It can be served cold or warm, depending on our tastes.
Jata GR205 Grilling Plate, Non-stick, Scratch Resistant, 1000W, Measurements 28 x 22 cm, Made in Spain, Easy cleaning, Sauce tray
*Some prices may have changed since the last review
Other tataki recipes that you will love
Now that we have told you the keys to making a perfect tataki, All you have to do is choose the main ingredient for your next preparation and follow our instructions, to enjoy it at a future family or friends gathering.
In DAP | The nine best tuna recipes from Directo al Paladar
In DAP | Chef Dani García’s two tricks to make a perfect tataki at home