We’re going to do a little bit of Ahi Tuna Poke. Okay. Now, the Ahi Tuna Poke classically comes from Hawaii and Poke. Basically, what Poke means is cubes. Okay. So, that’s how the term Ahi Poke came about.
So here we have a nice beautiful piece of Ahi tuna. In this dish, it’s very, very important to get a very high quality tuna because you’re going to be eating it rare. So, we’re going to cut this into little cubes, hence the name Poke. Okay, cut this up like that. So, as you can see, the technique is really you want to slice the pieces and build them back together almost like blocks and that will ensure that you are going to get a nice and uniform cut. So, we cut these up, let’s do our Poke and get a little more tuna here. Okay. Now, the size of the tuna really depends on how you like the tuna to be cut. You could make big cubes, you can make smaller cubes. I prefer cubes that are roughly about this size. Okay, so it’s not that big, but still you can feel the texture in your mouth. So, we start with our tuna here, put this inside. Once that’s inside there, then we’re going to start adding all the ingredients to it.
Here, we have a little bit of sesame oil. So we’ll put a little bit of sesame oil in it. The sesame oil has a very, very nice flavor to the tuna. So, what I’m doing now is after I put the oil in, then I go ahead and mix all the tuna together just slightly. What that’s going to do is that is then going to almost form a skin on the tuna. Okay, if you will. I always find it much better to do that versus putting everything together. This way, the tuna really flows smoothly when you’re actually mixing all the ingredients together.
We have a little bit of white onion here. Now, this is a Maui Onion which is a much sweeter variety than the regular yellow onions that you find in the store. These onions can almost be eaten raw, they’re so sweet. Then I have a little bit of cilantro here. Okay, I also have a little bit of soy sauce. Okay, so put a little bit of soy sauce inside. The soy sauce acts as a nice flavoring agent. It’s also used in place of salt. I do put a little salt in this dish but the soy sauce, since it has some salt in it; I tend to use that more than I do with salt for this particular dish.
Okay, this here is a pickled ginger. As you can see, it’s just a very nice finely cut piece of ginger that has been pickled in a little bit of vinegar and sugar. Okay, and with that, we’re going to make some julienne strips. I’ll put some julienne strips in there. That’s also going to add a nice characteristic to your Ahi Tuna.
Traditionally, in Hawaii, they use what’s called a kukui nut and kukui nut only grows really native of the islands. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any kukui nut today but we do have the substitute. And the substitute I like to use for kukui nut is really a roasted hazel nut. It seems to be the closest flavor to the kukui nut. Okay, so I’m going to put a little bit of the roasted hazel nuts inside, then we’re going to slowly mix that together. So, as you can see, the tuna just roasted really nicely because I’ve already seasoned it with a little bit of the sesame oil. It also helps when you do the sesame oil first with the tuna. It’s going to help disperse the sesame oil to really every part of the tuna. Okay, mix that up. So we’re going to give that a little taste. That’s very good.
Okay. Now, we’re going to make our chips. Now here, what we have here is we have just a little bit of wonton skins. These you can find in any market. Again, I’m going to use my cutter here. We’re going to cut out a couple of pieces of these. I’ll cut out a couple of pieces of those and cut out some more. Wonton is an excellent dough to use for any type of canapes because it’s very easy to work with. As you can see, it’s really easy to work with as well as it’s very much—It’s ready to go. You just pick that up right in the supermarket and bring it home, cut some shapes, put them in a deep frier and then you’re ready.
So here, we’re going to put these in our fryer. I’m using just a little bit of vegetable oil. These don’t take very long. Put them all in one side, turn them over quickly. That is just about 10 seconds. So, we got out chips here. Watch out not to burn yourself. It will be very, very quick and very delicate. So now, that we have our wonton chips here, now we’re going to make a little quenelles, it’s another term that we use in the industry. Let’s see if we can make a little quenelle with this. What that’s going to do is that’s just going to put it on your wonton chip a little more uniformed and shaped. So we put one of those on there like that and do one more. And we’re going to take a little bit of fresh cilantro. We’re going to use a little bit of fresh cilantro for our garnish, keeping with the theme of the cilantro inside of the dish itself. Okay, this is a little plouchet. So, we’re going to add just a little bit of that right on top. If you’d like, you can do a little bit of sesame seeds as well. So this is our Ahi Tuna Poke on a wanton chip.
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