Tuna in saffron-coconut milk served with crushed semolina cookies

hch-14-prioritaires HCH 14 / January 2017

Tuna in saffron-coconut milk served with crushed semolina cookies, by Eyal Streett

Happy New Year!

Here’s a great recipe I put together. It might take some time to prepare because you’ve got to bake some semolina cookies first, but I promise it’s worth the effort. If you’re pressed with time you can obviously make this dish without the cookies to crush on top or use some other cookies, as long as they aren’t too sweet (though it won’t taste as good…). You can also choose another fish, though I find the combination with tuna very successful.

Anyway, not much more to say, so let’s start cooking!

Ingredients

cookies

1 cup semolina

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1/2 cup wheat bran * (or 2 cups of plain flour and no bran at all)

200 gr melted butter

4 Tbsp. sugar (I use brown)

1/2 cup rose water

2 Tbsp. milk (any kind)

filling

125 gr ground or chopped almonds

25 gr ground coconut

25 gr melted butter

a small pinch of saffron threads

Greased baking tray

fish and saffron-coconut sauce

4 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1/2 tsp. cumin seeds

1/2 tsp. fennel seeds

1 tsp. coriander seeds

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 onion diced

1 carrot cut in sticks

1 generous pinch of saffron threads (at least 15 threads)

1 espresso cup filled with warm water

400 ml coconut milk

6 Tbsp. vegetable broth (or water)

500 gr fresh tuna, cut to medium-sized chunks

1 tsp. chili powder (optional but recommended)

salt to taste

Instructions

We’ll start with the cookies and then go on to the fish.

Mix the semolina, flour, bran, melted butter (200 grams), sugar, rose water and milk. Knead your dough together for a few minutes until you get a nice dough that doesn’t stick to your hands. Cover and put aside for half an hour or so.

Meanwhile preheat your oven to 180º Celsius.

Make your filling: mix together the almonds, coconut, melted butter (25 grams) and saffron.

Once you waited around 30 minutes (in which time you could do some preparing for the fish ingredients) take your dough out. Take a small handful of dough in your hand and make a ping pong sized ball (or a bit larger). Make a hole in the ball with your thumb. Fill the hole with the almond filling and seal the ball. You’ll be making around 25 of these balls. Place them all in a greased baking tray and put them in the oven for 20-22 minutes. Let them cool down. The cookies taste great on their own as well, so don’t worry about having too many of them around the house.

For the fish do the following:

Crush together the coriander, cumin and fennel seeds.

In a large pan heat your oil on a medium-high flame, add your crushed seeds when the oil is warm and constantly stir for 1 minute, add the garlic and the chopped onion and stir from time to time for another 3 minutes. Add your saffron threads to the espresso cup of warm water and let it mix together for a bit. Meanwhile add the carrots to the pan and mix together. Now add the chili powder and then the vegetable broth. Once the liquids are boiling lower the flame to low and then add the coconut milk and the espresso cup (water + saffron), mix together and let it cook on a low flame for a couple of minutes. Taste the sauce and add salt to taste.

The tuna should then go in the sauce for a short time, about 1 minute on 1 side, then another minute on the other. Get it off the fire now and leave it covered for another 3 minutes.

To serve:

Take a few tuna chunks, add a generous amount of sauce on top and then crush a cookie with your hand and sprinkle it on top of the whole thing. Serve with rice.