Pan-Seared Tuna Sashimi

Ah, the weekend...

...and finally one with not too much for my blogging beauty queen wife Joyce Burton-Titular and i to do! She'd picked up a couple of slabs of tuna cuts for sashimi earlier in the week with some idea of pan searing them, not really blackened cajun style... but something like that.

So this morning after breakfast which consisted of scrambled eggs, spanish style sardines in tomato sauce and some focaccia (there is a point for mentioning this) while i was out in the garage cleaning my old Toyota SR preparing it for junking, she was looking for something to do with the tuna for lunch. What she found was pan-seared tuna.

Now i need to mention here that as adventurous as my beauty queen wife is, when it comes to cooking Joyce usually sticks to the recipe. So imagine my surprise when she told me she got the idea from the internet and then... improvised! With some help from me, of course!

Right off the bat she ran into a problem; no breadcrumbs! Bless her heart though she thought of using some oat bran. As i walked in to check on her she asked me what i though of the idea and i said, "sounds kewl, but why don't you just use the leftover rosemary and olive oil focaccia from breakfast and toss it into the food processor?" She had her doubts but in the end she went with the focaccia... and... tossed some oat bran into it as well for this pan-seared tuna delight!

After rolling the patted-dry-tuna-cuts in rock salt, coursely ground pepper and the breadcrumb and oat bran, she passed them to me for a quick sear in a heated pan with olive oil, and i mean quick... just enough to give it a slightly golden brown crunchy top texture... give it shot and enjoy!

Things to consider:

- i guess you can come up with your own coating

- don't forget to pat dry the tuna with paper towels

- make sure the pan is hot enough so you don't take 5 mins. to get that nice

coating and wind up cooking the fish! it is pan-seared tuna sashimi after all.

i gave it about 45 secs. to a minute to sear per side of each tuna sashimi cut.

- we used olive oil

- great clean high protein meal! definitely buff food!

Food Bout with Gout!

(pizza from yellow cab...hmm good! photo from yugatech.com)

We'd been back at the gym probably a month or so, going at least 3 times a week. Whenever we're on a good gym schedule i drink tons of water which is good for everything... except long trips in traffic! So i can't quite figure out what triggered my latest gout attack! Joyce, my blogging beauty queen wife, says it must've been the extra large pizza with anchovies that we had... twice in one week!.... nah!

Ok, so maybe it was that.. along with the asparagus i had in that great chicken sandwhich, the monggo (stewed mung beans) with chili leaves we've been having alot of for dinner, and the white beans in my simple ron-style cassoulet (i'll post this sometime... easy to make really!), also twice in the same week... but hey, i didn't use goose or pork, or sausages... well ok, i used sausages... but hey, they were veggie sausages... um... wait a minute...yup, wouldn'tcha knkow it! soy...

Though it's called the rich man's disease, trust me you don't have to be rich to get it... and it's not just "rich" foods that can trigger it. Everything i mentioned above can trigger an attack, even, as i mentioned, if you are exercising (and especially if your not drinking enough water!) i usually have a whey protein shake after working out. The whey protein isn't bad, but i usually mix mine with soy milk and there is debate about soy milk and gout.


Typically all bean things are no no's! As are cruciferous veggies... and i love cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli! ugh! Of course sea foods is a danger zone. Believe it or not, oats and almost all nuts (aw, nuts!) make the list of "you can't touch this!" food... Let see... beer and other alcholic beverages... though there's debate about red wine, and chocolate (yeah!)... and of course anything "rich", i.e. high fat and oily foods and hi protein meats... even most breads and any baked cakes and stuff fall under suspicion. so.. what's a food buff to do!!??

(more about cruciferous veggies from this site where i got this picture from)

There's one website that advocates balance, basically saying that nothing has to be totally avoided as long as you just watch the type of foods you eat and balance the highly acidic foods (foods which can trigger gout) with high alkaline foods. Sounds right to me and it's pretty much what i try to do outside of my "cheat days". But i'm not a doctor so make sure you check in with yours or your nutritionist before trying just anything! Still, i think balance is good advice for a regular diet. The site, goutpal.com gives list upon list of foods with their alkaline or acidity levels... but in the middle of my gout attack... i didn't want to try to balance anything! I was on an all out bout with gout!

Here's some of the stuff i did try:

Cherries and cherry juice - My favorite and a staple whenever i have a gout attack (this was my 4th in 3 years)! It's recommended by almost everyone! Doesn't have to be fresh cherries... even canned cherries will do... even maraschino cherries (too sweet for my taste though!)

Cranberries and cranberry juice - yum! Newly recommended to me by pastor Ed De Guzman. Couldn't find dried cranberries near the house though i know they have in some supermarkets. Not sure if it helped, but nice treat:) (you might not like it if you don't like tart stuff)

(picture of pansit-pansitan from the site Rosella sent and pic from our own garden)

Pansit-pansitan - I thought my friend Jonathan Jabson was joking... telling me to eat pansit! turns out it's a plant that's being studied for medicinal use for arthritis and gout! My friend Rosella Shishido sent me a web-site with the pic above to check out and the next day joyce came running in saying "let me see that picture again!" She found some right in our very own garden!!! tried making a tea out of it for a couple of days, but it didn't seem to do anything for me.

Apple cider vinegar with honey - I know what you're thinking. eeewwww. Sounds like one of those old time snake oil or castor oil remedy things! My buddy Mano Abello mentioned this to me and Joyce found it on the net too. What a kick! but the taste has grown on me and i believe it helps!

It's gotta be the organic type and it's gotta have "the Mother" in it. You'll see it as strands of white fiberous stuff floating around in the bottle. Cool!


Sambong - another local plant which comes as a tablet or as tea. I took the tablet as recommended to me by pastor Ed De Guzman. This, i really feel, helped! (yes... it tastes green!)

There's this other herbal medicine i found in a chinese store called "Su Kun Po #5"... but couldn't find it on the net and haven't been able to ask any of my chinese friends yet what it is so i didn't try it. Anyone know what it is?

I'm under that suspicion that yes, there are some definite foods that are sure triggers... beans, nuts.. but for all the debatable one's, it may be a bit different for everyone, depending on your body make up, your regular diet, your excercise habits and other health conditions (again, i'm not a doctor so check with yours!)... so listen to your body and take heed...don't forget, your body is the temple!

Footnote (Feetnote...ha ha!):

(during the gout, left.... and recovery stage, right)
Now that the gout attack is pretty much done and my foot is nearing it normal state, i'll be looking more into the goutpal.com food listings to see if i can figure out what could have tipped the scales to trigger a gout attack and how to better balance my diet and cheat days. Let's see, now what would balance out a large pizza with anchovies?....

Chef Tony's Pesto Pasta and Blackened Chicken

...Ask my wife beauty queen blogger Joyce Ann Burton-Titular... I'm not too into following step by step recipes... you see, i'm a concept kinda guy... "if you understand the 'concept' behind things, things come easier"... that goes for technical equipment, mathematical formulas, marketing campaigns, relationships and, yes, cooking!!! Least, that's how it works for me.

So when Chef Tony Elepano (of Chef Tony's Popcorn and Cajun Red Rock Restaurant fame) came over to our live netcast program on The Edge Manila to show us how to make pesto pasta and blackened chicken, I focused on not just the ingredients (the whats) and steps (the hows), but especially on the whys... while Joyce and our friend Mano Abello focused on... well...the food!

So i missed out on some extra bites while they stuffed face! But, hey, i did take the lessons home to give it a shot on my own the very next night!

Important lessons, cooking techniques and a pesto secret i learned from this session with Chef Tony:

1. Add something to the olive oil, garlic and chopped basil to give your pesto a zing... Chef Tony's Secret...a bullion cube when you blend it up
   
2. Don't over cook!!! If the olive oil smokes before you put the food in the pan it's already too late! The smoke means the oil is burning, Sherlock... there goes all the good stuff!
3. Don't over cook!!! Turn off the power of the electric or induction stove top, kill the fire, lift the pan up and away from the heat to keep things from getting too hot! You can always bring the heat back. Again, don't let the flavor and good stuff get burned away!
4. Don't over cook!!! (get the point yet?) When the pesto hits the pan don't fry it! Add the cooked pasta to it and let it get warmed through and mixed well into the pesto and... don't fry it! Parboil the chicken (do this earlier on) before dunking it in a bath of melted butter and cajun spice mix for blackening so when you finish cooking it in olive oil you keep the flavors of the virgin oil, the butter and the spices and don't have to worry about undercooking either. Ok, this isn't necessarily traditional blackening... where you use a grill or heavy skillet with no oil, much less olive oil! but the basic principal is there and boy, does it taste great!
   
5. Have fun!!!

(look at the smiles!.... ah, must be the joy of cooking!)

... bon appetit!!! whoa......hit the brakes!

... so where's the recipe??? The list of ingredients!?? The rest of the steps!!!??? Told you i wasn't too keen on that stuff. It's pretty much all up there anyway... But luckily for you we taped the show ;) and look, it's embedded right here! Isn't technology wonderful??!! ....er... you might wanna get a pen and some paper...