Tuna Tartare with Yuzu Kosho and Avocado
Sushi-grade ahi cut with an actually sharp knife, folded with avocado and a yuzu kosho dressing, and spooned onto wonton crisps at the last possible second. Dress it early and you have made ceviche by accident.
The parts that change whether this works tonight.
- Makes
- 24 crisps
- Time
- 25 minutes, of which about 15 is knife work
- Equipment
- Chef's knife, Cutting board, Mixing bowl, Whisk
- Make-ahead
- Components only. Wonton crisps hold days in a tin and can be refreshed for three minutes in a 350°F oven if they lose their snap
- The method
- 9 ingredients · 6 steps
From this recipe’s own yield and timing lines, Kitchen Kit and make ahead section. Nothing here is a guess.
Pairing
Wine — Junmai ginjo or Grüner Veltliner. Mixed drink — Yuzu gin and tonic. Teetotaler — Yuzu-shiso soda. Heat and avocado both want something cold, saline, and a little floral.
Tools
The sharpest knife in the house, sharpened again before you start. A cold metal bowl, ideally one that has been in the freezer twenty minutes. A small whisk for the dressing. A tray you can carry, because these get built and walked out immediately.
Ingredients · swaps in parentheses
Sushi-grade ahi tuna, avocado, yuzu juice (lime plus a squeeze of grapefruit), yuzu kosho, toasted sesame oil, chives, toasted sesame seeds, wonton crisps (nori crackers)
Magic
Fold in a quarter cup of Asian pear cut to the same dice as the tuna. Everything in this bowl is soft, cold, and rich, and the only crunch is the crisp underneath, which is gone in one bite. Asian pear stays audibly crisp in acid, brings a clean sweetness that has nothing to do with citrus, and keeps the tuna from reading as one uniform texture. Not feeling brave? Scatter it over the top rather than folding it through, so it can be pushed aside by anyone who objects.
Gotcha
Dress the tuna more than a few minutes ahead and the acid starts curing it. The surface goes pale and opaque, the texture turns soft and slightly grainy, and you have made a mediocre ceviche instead of a tartare. Dress at the last possible moment.
Makes 24 crisps · 25 minutes, of which about 15 is knife work
This is a knife dish. There is no cooking, no reduction, nothing that develops flavor over time, so the only craft on offer is how the tuna is cut. A dull blade tears the fibers and smears the fat, and the tartare goes pasty and looks bruised within minutes. A sharp one leaves clean-faced cubes that stay separate and catch the light, which is the entire visual point of putting tartare on a crisp.
Buy the tuna from someone who sells it for eating raw and will say so out loud. Ask for a center-cut block rather than a steak, since a block gives you square edges and no wasted trim. Keep it in the coldest part of the refrigerator until the second you cut it, and put it back if you get interrupted.
Ingredients
- 12 oz sushi-grade ahi tuna, diced
- 1 avocado, diced
- 1 tbsp yuzu juice
- 1 tsp yuzu kosho
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp sliced chives
- 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
- 24 wonton crisps
- Flaky salt
Method
- Chill everything. Bowl in the freezer, tuna in the refrigerator, knife wiped clean. Work on a cold board if you can manage it.
- Cut the tuna. Trim any sinew, then slice the block into quarter-inch planks, the planks into batons, and the batons into even quarter-inch cubes. Long strokes, no sawing, wipe the blade every few cuts. Return the tuna to the refrigerator the moment it is cut.
- Whisk the dressing. Combine 1 tbsp yuzu juice, 1 tsp yuzu kosho, and 2 tsp sesame oil and whisk until the kosho is dispersed with no visible clumps. Taste it on a fingertip. It should be sharp and salty enough to make you blink.
- Dice the avocado last. Cut it to match the tuna, quarter-inch cubes, and season it on its own with a pinch of salt before it joins anything.
- Fold, briefly. Combine the dressing, tuna, avocado, 1 tbsp sliced chives, and 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds in the cold bowl and fold four or five times with a rubber spatula. For the magic version, fold in a quarter cup of finely diced Asian pear here.
- Build and go. Spoon onto 24 wonton crisps, a rounded tablespoon each, finish with flaky salt, and carry the tray out immediately.
Yuzu kosho is stronger than it looks
Yuzu kosho is a Japanese paste of chile, salt, and yuzu peel, fermented, and a single teaspoon carries a serious amount of both salt and heat. It is not a garnish and it does not need help. Because it is a paste, it also clumps if you fold it straight into the fish, and a clump means one guest gets an ambush while everyone else gets nothing. Whisk it into the liquids first, always, and check that it has fully dispersed before the tuna goes anywhere near it.
Cutting tuna without wrecking it
Tuna muscle runs in visible bands separated by thin sheets of connective tissue. Cut across those bands rather than along them and every cube holds together. Pressing down with a dull knife compresses the flesh and squeezes out the fat that makes tuna taste like tuna, which is why smeared tartare tastes flat as well as looking gray. If your knife is not sharp, dice smaller and faster rather than pressing harder, and accept a slightly rougher result.
Timing, which is the only difficulty
Two hours out: crisps in a sealed container, chives sliced, dressing whisked and refrigerated, tuna diced and covered in the coldest corner of the fridge. Five minutes out: dice the avocado, fold everything, spoon and serve. That is the whole schedule. Anyone who tells you the tartare can sit dressed for twenty minutes has not looked at it after twenty minutes. If the party is long, hold half the tuna back and build a second tray, because a crisp that has held tartare for ten minutes has already gone soft underneath.
Make ahead
Components only. Wonton crisps hold days in a tin and can be refreshed for three minutes in a 350°F oven if they lose their snap. The dressing keeps two days and arguably improves. Everything else waits until the last five minutes, which is genuinely fine, because those five minutes are the easiest part of the evening.
Part of Recipes & Technique.
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