It’s been a pretty hectic week so far. Some advice : Unless you’re a morning bird, 7am flights are not fun. Try as I might to get some sleep on the plane, I ended up needing to crash early in the afternoon. Good thing I didn’t have anything to do other than relax when I got to Pittsburgh! I still did do some sightseeing that day…it was sweltering hot (90 degrees and HUMID) and silly me forgot to pack shorts.
That’s the “Cathedral of Learning” at the University of Pittsburgh. It’s the tallest building in the area and pretty imposing if you ask me. Can you imagine taking an exam in a thunderstorm? I mean, it’d be like Ghostbusters or something, I’d expect to see the Keymaster and Gatekeeper wandering around (And maybe Bill Murray).
I did manage to stop at one of UPitt’s local eateries: Essie’s Original Hot Dog Shop. Sadly, I was too excited to chow down on the all-beef frank and didn’t take any pictures. It’d been quite a while since I had a hot dog and this one was worth it. I asked for one of the slightly more burnt ones (I love burnt hot dogs, don’t quite know why) and I got a smile from the cashier (She said she prefers the burnt ones too but not many other people do!). One other thing of note was the size of the french fry sides. The large really can feed 4 people, it’s easily over a pound of french fries (I was told later that one of my friends put down nearly the entire large fries by himself…it made my stomach turn a little bit)
Alumni Hall
I can’t seem to find where this recipe originated. I had it scrawled down on one of my various notepads for quite some time and never got around to trying it. But then I got a nice tuna steak on sale at Whole Foods. I wasn’t going to at first but they looked too good to pass up. The customer behind me also got a couple tuna steaks. He said he was originally going to make chicken but couldn’t pass up the tuna, the chicken would have to wait until the next day. That’s a good man right there =P
Sesame seared Tuna steak
Time: 10 minutes
Serves 2
Ingredients:
– 1 lb Tuna steak (cut into two)
– 2 tbsp light soy sauce
– 1 tsp mirin
– 1/2 tsp honey
– 1 tsp sesame oil
– 1 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
– Dash of sake
– Extra virgin olive oil
– Wasabi
– Sesame seeds
Method:
1. Mix together the soy sauce, mirin, honey, sesame oil, and sake. Separate them into two portions. Mix the Chinkiang vinegar into one of the portions.
2. Coat the steaks with the non-vinegar portion of sauce. Let marinate for a couple minutes.
3. Press some sesame seeds onto each side of the steaks.
4. Add some olive oil to a frying pan or skillet over high heat. Quickly sear the tuna steaks (~1 minute or so on each side, maybe more depending on thickness) and transfer to a plate. Serve with the vinegar sauce and wasabi.
Note: You can cook the tuna longer if you prefer. I like it barely cooked, if it’s fresh.