Day One Hundred Sixty One: Cutting the Mustard Tuna Steak

Tuesday I made Martha's Tuna with Mustard Seed Crust because a rare tuna steak is the kind of fish my husband is mad about.

The recipe calls for coarsely ground mustard seed.  As in: mustard seed that you have grounded.  So, I got out my trusty mortar and pestle and got to grinding. This is the photo of the seeds when I started grinding:  

I ground the mustard seeds for fifteen minutes and this is the result:

...And after another ten minutes:

After thirty minutes, I had spilled half the mustard seeds on the counter and a blister was forming on my palm. There was still had no appreciable progress, so I broke down and ground them in very small batches, pounding them into submission.

It was better than therapy.

After dredging the tuna in the coarsely ground mustard seed, the tuna is very quickly cooked over medium heat.  The result:

One would assume that mustard seed would taste very strongly of mustard.  I expected the tuna to basically taste like I had dipped it in spicy mustard.  It didn't.  In fact, the taste was quite surprising.

It was boring as hell.

The mustard seed tastes faintly of mustard but the dish was pretty, well....blah.  I ended up adding quite a bit of red pepper, just to spice it up.  BUT, with that small addition, the dish was a colossal hit with my husband.

And now I have an alternative to therapy.