A Winter Refresh: Cooking in Miami
EK: Last week, I went to visit my friends, TJ and Edvina, in North Miami Beach. I’ve known TJ for many years as we met when we were both very active in the housewares industry. He created my favorite example of reinventing an everyday item. He took something very utilitarian—a box cutter—and made it more functional with an award-winning contemporary design called Slice. A few years ago, he sold Slice and embraced the food world with his girlfriend Edvina.
Edvina is a private chef with a new YouTube show. She is Armenian and her food is clean and bright with both flavor and color, and exudes her global influences from growing up in Russia to moving to NYC in her twenties, and traveling the world [follow her on Instagram to see more].
The show is cooking and conversation and so far the guest list has been eclectic and reflective of their friends with both chefs and non-chefs. The non-chefs have included Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones and Agustín Fernández Santana III, a former US Marine, scientist and film maker. Notably, he produced the Academy Award winning Documentary The Lady in Number 6, which tells the story of Alice Hertz, the world's oldest pianist and holocaust survivor.
AU: Wow! Sounds like a pretty cool lineup… and don’t forget THE Elizabeth Karmel!!
EK: Thanks T! Edvina is also writing her first cookbook and I was lucky enough to see a sneak peek of the photography which is spectacular. On the page, it looks like it was a big production, but Edvina cooked all of the food by herself without any helpers as it was being shot by photographer, Diana Moschitz.
As someone who’s written and photographed five cookbooks, I can tell you that this is very rare; usually there is a whole crew working to cook, prop and photograph a cookbook. Not only can Edvina cook delicious tasting food, but her plating and her sense of color and design makes these photographs coffee-table book worthy. I can’t wait to see the finished product.
EK: While, I was in Miami, we filmed an episode of her show featuring my favorite new Pumpkin Seed Pesto, and cooked a lot together. Earlier in the week, Aaron Sanchez, (one of my favorite people from my days of Chef in New York) was visiting Edvina. He was in town for South Beach Food and Wine Festival and a fundraiser for his Aaron Sanchez Impact Fund hosted by Edvina and TJ. Needless to say, they made a huge feast for the fundraiser.
That meant when I arrived on Wednesday there were a lot of fabulous leftovers. Like any chef, Edvina has a huge stock of ingredients and she still had a lot of fresh food left over from Aaron’s event. As we went through it, we found two beautiful pieces of tuna that had been ordered to make tuna tostadas. Since the fish was a couple of days old, we weren’t going to eat it crudo, so we had to spontaneously think of something to do with it.
In the spirit of zero food waste, we looked at this gorgeous piece of sushi-grade bluefin tuna, and thought what can we do to preserve it?
I love the glass jars of tuna packed in olive oil and so I instantly thought let’s poach the tuna in olive oil so we can cook it, store it and use it later. Edvina looked at all the aromatics in her well stocked refrigerator and pulled out fennel, ginger and garlic, chili peppers, and a bunch of herbs. In no time she had chunks of tuna poaching in this fragrant olive oil. I was so excited because I knew that we were going to make a better version of that delicious jarred tuna.
AU: Yum! How fun. I can actually taste it right now!
EK: Our flavored poached tuna was spectacular! We preserved in a large mason jar and refrigerated to be used later. I was so inspired that I brought a 2.6 pound chunk of yellowfin tuna home with me in my suitcase. Luckily the flight is only an hour between Fort Lauderdale and Charleston and the fish was still icy cold when I got home.
EK: On the plane, I decided to make a very simple, garlic, lemon and thyme poached tuna because those flavors would lend themselves to just about anything that I want to do with the tuna, including eating it out of the fridge by the chunk.
AU: I bet the dregs of it (if any) would make a killer tonnato sauce, too!
EK: Ooohh! Great idea!
The recipe is so simple to prepare that a cook of any level can make it. The only catch is that you need to make it at least the day before you want to serve it so that it can sit and marinate in the aromatic olive oil once you poach it.
EK: If you’ve never “chunked” tuna, the easiest way to do it is to cut straight through the middle of the fillet of tuna, so you have two large pieces. Lay those pieces flat and cut them in half vertically. At that point it’s very easy to cut each piece into three chunks that are about 2“ x 2”.
EK: I peeled the zest off the lemon with a vegetable peeler being careful to leave the bitter white pith on the lemon. Place the lemon zest, peeled garlic and thyme in a heavy-duty 3-4 quart pot and add the olive oil. You want to slowly bring the oil up to temperature so nothing burns.
When the oil is bubbly, you will carefully add the chunks of tuna, making sure that they are covered by the oil. It will take a little finesse as you gently move them into place, but don’t worry, they will take their natural position. Keep the heat on low until the oil comes back to temerpature and place a lid on the pot. Turn off the heat and let it sit for a couple of hours. You want to tuna to cook all the way through. Refrigerate the covered pot overnight and you can place it in the jar the next day.
EK: This is one of those recipes where the sum of the parts is greater than the parts. The warm olive oil brings out the flavor of the thyme, chili flakes, lemon peel and garlic and infuses the tuna with flavor. If you are looking for ways to use the tuna, make sure to make at least one salad nicoise with this poached tuna. It’s also fantastic served with boiled, grilled or roasted new potatoes and a generous amount of butter and parsley.
Once you’ve used all the tuna, don’t toss the oil, it will make an amazing oil for vinaigrettes.
Beautiful writeup!