Although I’m not a strict traditionalist when it comes to food, I’ve always been cautious when combining dishes or ingredients from different cultures. I started cooking in the ’80s, which I think of as the Fusion Decade, and the Anything Goes approach that characterized the fine dining of that era has long since trickled to down to the level of, say, the syndicated TV cooking show. I’ve been traumatized ever since I last watched Rachael Ray whip up “Irish Nachos,” an ungodly mishmash of waffle-cut frozen French fries, corned beef and cabbage and cheddar cheese that encouraged me to reapply the virtues of tradition and integrity to my own cooking.
Having said that, it’s also true that cooking usually progresses through cross-cultural experimentation: after all, the tomato, which is a staple of Italian cuisine, was once an exotic South American import, and all cuisines are to some degree fusion cuisines. Who, for example, would not argue for the virtues of the French-Asian fusion that characterize Vietnamese cooking?
Poke tuna is itself a kind of hybrid — a mixture of the Japanese and the Hawaiian. The tuna is served raw, cut into large chunks and mixed with soy, ginger, scallions and a few other ingredients. The one thing this dish misses is a little bit of crunch. I brought home some good poke tuna the other day from an Asian market, and my wife, Yasmin, had the brilliant idea of sprinkling it with crumbled potato chips, a nontraditional but delicious twist.
John Broening cooks at Duo and Olivea restaurants in Denver.
Poke Tuna With Potato Chips
Note: To cut the tuna into even cubes you will need to freeze it for about 30 minutes, and you will also need a very sharp knife. Togarashi is a Japanese spice mixture which includes hot pepper, lemon pepper and sesame seeds. It is available in Denver at Pacific Mercantile Co., 1925 Lawrence St., 303-295-0293. Serves 4.
Ingredients
1 teaspoon wasabi powder
1 pound center-cut sushi-grade tuna cut in half-inch cubes
3 tablespoons scallions cut into paper-thin rounds
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon Togarashi
1 tablespoon sesame oil
Juice of half a lime
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 cup potato chips, crumbled (I prefer Kettle Chips Salt and Pepper flavor)
Directions
In a small glass dish, mix together the wasabi powder with an equal amount of cold water. In a mixing bowl, toss together the tuna, scallions, ginger, Togarashi, sesame oil, lime juice and half the wasabi paste. Taste the tuna and add more wasabi if needed. Divide the mixture among four chilled martini glasses and top each serving with a little bit of the crumbled potato chips. Serve immediately.
