My Attempt To Cook Asian

I was going to write an angry post about how much New Year's Eve always sucks, but I figured I'd at least try to start 2011 off on a more light-hearted note. 

I've been on a real Asian food kick lately, so I decided I'd actually try and cook something slightly related to that region of the world. I love Asian flavors, but I'm just not that familiar with the ingredients. The fact that this food has always been more of a mystery to me has caused me to avoid trying to cook it, simply so I don't go fucking up a good thing. So what do I do? I take my white ass to the pantry and pull out every Asian ingredient I have and concoct a mish-mosh of flavors that slightly resemble a dish representing said region. 

Check it.

Ok so that's honey, red curry paste, soy sauce, fish sauce, rice vinegar, and chili paste, lime and garlic. Notice that I'm not giving you specific amounts of how much to use of each, mainly because I had no clue what I was doing. I combined these ingredients into a bowl and whisked them together until I had a sauce-like consistency and I was happy with the flavors I had going on. 

I seasoned a piece of tuna with salt and pepper and threw it in a hot pan with olive oil and seared each side for about three minutes. 

Meanwhile, I threw together a salad of arugula and lightly tossed the greens in that sauce/dressing I just created with some spiced peanuts. I also basted the tuna with said sauce/dressing as it was finishing its sear on the second side. 

I sliced the tuna up, placed it on top of the greens, squeezed some fresh lime juice all over the place and this is what I got. 

What the hell is it? 

Insert generic name of "Asian Tuna Salad" here.

I mean other than the fact that I over cooked the tuna, this actually tasted pretty good. I had a decent balance of flavors going on here, with the bitterness from the greens, the spice/sweetness from the sauce, and the salty crunch of the peanuts. 

I really killed the tuna though. 

And maybe I just need to go get an Asian cookbook. Or Asian friends that can actually teach me a thing or two. Until then I'll probably stick with cooking white boy shit. 

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- Fat Kid