Tuna Coconut Summer Sauce

I’ve been getting requests for this since I made it last year, and I made it again this year. It’s a summer thing. SO TASTY! I changed it up a little bit between the two years, so I’ll give you the various options, and you do what you want.

Tuna Coconut Summer Sauce

INGREDIENTS

1 medium tuna steak (1/4 to 1/3 pound) (fresh or frozen, NOT canned!)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small hot (banana) pepper (or ~1 t tabasco), sliced
2 T olive oil
1 14-ounce coconut milk
1 8-ounce jar tomato lime cilantro sauce*
salt and/or pepper to taste

Serve on:
Rice, quinoa, or noodles cooked and ready to serve.

DIRECTIONS

1. In a sauce pan, sauté the onion and pepper in the olive oil for 2 minutes. Add the tuna steak, cut into roughly one inch cubes. Include any juices if the tuna steak was frozen. Continue to sauté until the onion is transparent.

2. Add the coconut milk and tomato sauce. Taste, and add salt, pepper, or other spices to taste. A whisper of cinnamon might be nice. Simmer, and reduce to the consistency of heavy cream.

3. Ladle over rice, quinoa, or noodles to serve. I’ve tried this served on plain basmati rice, sushi rice, a mild pilaf or risotto, a variety of quinoas cooked to light and fluffy, cajun yellow rice, and vermicelli rice noodles. They were all good, and most were delicious. I prefer this served hot, but I’ve also enjoyed it served chilled as a light lunch.

* I’ve been using homemade tomato lime cilantro sauce, but if you don’t want to make any, you can substitute canned as follows.

1 8-ounce can tomato sauce or diced tomatoes
juice of 1-2 limes
1/2 bunch cilantro (approximately 1/2 C minced)

For the homemade sauce, I blended tomatoes, lime, cilantro, and salt, and then heated the mix and canned it in jars. Haven’t written it down yet, still working out exactly what proportions I like best.