I first tried making this meal after consulting with Chef Billy Krupp at Google a couple years ago. I wanted to do a seared tuna steak and was casting about for ideas of sides. Rice or potatoes, a vegetable, that sort of thing. Chef Krupp made the suggestion of doing wasabi mashers. He also suggested asparagus with red thai chili peppers (which I did at the time, but it was asparagus season then).

When I made it this time I used swiss chard as the side, as we had some from our produce delivery.

Chard

• Wash, trim, and chop into thin ribbons (the stems into small chunks).
• Quickly sauté until just tender
• season with sesame oil

Tuna

• Coat the steaks in sesame seeds: white, black, or a mix.
• Quickly sear each side in a bit of oil in a hot pan. A cast iron (plain or enameled) pan works great for this.
• Be careful not to overcook, it should still be pink/raw in the middle.

Potatoes

• Make mashed potatoes.
• Mix in wasabi paste. If you’re mixed the paste from powder, you probably want to make more than you think you might need. It takes quite a bit to give these a nice kick.

That’s all there is to it. And here it is plated and ready to eat.