James's guide for searing tuna steaks for maximum deliciousness and increased virility (and also slight mercury poisoning, but let's focus on the positive.)

I recently rediscovered this in the depths of my Google drive! Years ago, I printed this out and gave it as a Christmas present to my boss at the company that I was working at the time, who had complained about not knowing what to do with the tuna steaks a family member had recently given him.

For some reason, I no longer work at that company.

Anyways, now you can have this wisdom!

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR ENLIGHTENMENT.

Here I shall impart to you my arcane knowledge on the subject of searing tuna steaks.

The most important things to remember when searing tuna steaks are as follows:

1. You will trash your entire kitchen. This is an unbreakable law of the cosmos. Don't fight it.
2. Wear clothes you don't care about. (If possible, wear skin you don't care about.)

With that covered, let's get on with the deliciounating.

First off, you need some tuna steaks, a pan, and some oil. (Use olive oil or something else with a decent smoking temp like avocado oil maybe? I can't remember, is avocado oil good for that sort of thing? Anyways, don't use canola oil or garbage like that.) Put the oil in the pan, put the pan on the stove, and set the heat on high (or medium-high). If the oil starts smoking, you know you're in the right spot – carcinogens are an important part of the flavor profile. (Or you can turn it down a little bit, but you should know that this is the pansy way out.)

While you're waiting for the pan to heat up, it's time to season those steaks! Put some spices in a bowl and slap each side of the tuna steaks down into it. Here's some good spices to try:

Potential Things to Rub on Your Tuna
(in a strictly platonic way)

Salt
Black pepper
Red pepper
Garlic powder maybe?

To do things Cajun style, add a Cajun spice mix (I recommend Slap Ya Mamma) plus some oregano. For a more Indian flavor, try coriander seed (assuming that you aren't one of those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap, because in that case you aren't doing things Indian style, you're doing them soap style. Unless you like the taste of soap, in which case have at ye… you weirdo.)

Anyways, once your pan is hot and you've got all of your steaks rubbed on both sides with seasoning, it's time to start searing!

First off, if you've got a hood fan over your stove, turn it on. Things are about to get SMOKY.

Now throw those steaks in there! They're going to start hissing and screaming and spattering oil everywhere. This is to be expected. If you have one of those little frying screen things you can slap it over the pan, but you're still going to end up splattering oil everywhere. It's the price of deliciousness.

If the pan is hot enough, the steaks shouldn't take more than a minute on each side – the seasoned sides should be seared, but you should still be able to see pink on the edges (see Figure A).

Don't overdo the steaks – you always have the option of throwing them back in. There's no fixing an overcooked tuna steak.

Once the sides are seared but the edges still have a little pink on them, go ahead and pull them out! Congratulations, you are now the new proud owner of some seared tuna steaks! Once you stop coughing on all of the burnt spice fumes it will all be worth it!

I like serving tuna steaks on a pile of plain basmati rice.

It'll be better with a little bit of sauce of some kind. All sorts of things would work here – tapas sauce, probably even salsa. For the legit Cajun style, make some etouffee. It goes like so:

Protoplasmic Etouffe

Start by making a roux. Take equal parts oil (or butter!) and flour. (A cup of each will make a massive amount). Mix them in the bottom of a pot and put them over low heat. Keep heating (and stir occasionally) until it becomes a golden brown. If you get impatient, you can notch the heat up slightly, just be careful not to burn it.

Once you've hit a nice light caramel color, throw in some chopped onions and a can of roasted tomatoes and turn the heat up a bit. You can jazz it up with additional Cajun-ish ingredients:

Cajun-ish Ingredients

Chopped bell peppers
Lots of garlic
Chopped celery
Oregano
Some salt
Some pepper

Keep cooking it until the onions (and whatever else you've added) get soft. Add water as needed. For ultimate Cajun-ness (Cajanity?), throw in some shrimp or crawdad tails.

Plop the steaks on some rice and ladle that etouffee over it! BAM! A healthy 7500 calories with all of the fat and carbohydrates the human body needs to live to the age of 45! Also, there's some fish, so it's good for your heart or something… AND BAD FOR DOLPHINS.

Remember, as supposedly the next smartest mammal, dolphins are our biggest competitors for ownership of the planet.

Do your part for humanity. Eat tuna. Kill a dolphin.