Tuna poke bowl with brown rice, done properly

I had a bloke ask me last week if you could make a decent tuna poke bowl with rice out of a packet. Short answer: no. Longer answer: you can get close if you treat the rice properly and don’t cheap out on the fish, which is really the whole point of this dish. Poke isn’t complicated. It’s raw fish, good rice, a sharp dressing and some texture on top. Muck up any one of those and you’ve got a sad desk lunch instead of the thing itself.

Why sashimi-grade doesn’t need to scare you

People get nervous about raw fish at home and I get why, but it’s not mysterious once you know what you’re buying. You need tuna labelled sashimi-grade or previously frozen for raw consumption, which most good fishmongers will sell you without you even asking twice. I get mine from a bloke at Nelson Bay, Macca, who’s run the same stall off the co-op for the better part of two decades and knows exactly which boat it came off. If your fishmonger can’t tell you that, that’s your answer.

Handle it properly once it’s home: straight in the fridge, used within a day, knife and board cleaned before and after. Food Standards Australia New Zealand publish the general guidance on handling raw seafood safely, and it’s worth a read if you’re new to this rather than winging it. None of it is difficult. It’s just not a step you skip.

Ingredients

• 200g brown rice, rinsed
• 400g sashimi-grade tuna (yellowfin or bluefin), cut into 1.5cm cubes
• 2 tbsp soy sauce (tamari if you want it gluten-free)
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 small garlic clove, finely grated
• 1 tsp fresh ginger, finely grated
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 1 Lebanese cucumber, ribboned
• 100g edamame, podded
• 2 radishes, thinly sliced
• 2 spring onions, sliced on the angle
• 1 tbsp black or white sesame seeds, toasted
• 1 sheet nori, shredded
• Pickled ginger, to serve
• Kewpie mayo or sriracha, optional, to finish

Method

1. Cook the brown rice according to the packet, or my method below if you want it right. Spread it on a tray to cool, don’t leave it steaming in the pot.
2. Whisk the soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, honey, garlic and ginger in a bowl. Taste it. It should be salty, a bit sweet, with a decent hit of ginger coming through the back.
3. Add the tuna to the dressing and toss gently. Leave it 8 to 10 minutes in the fridge while you get everything else ready. Don’t leave it longer than that or the acid starts to properly cure the fish and you lose the texture you’re after.
4. Divide the cooled rice between two bowls.
5. Arrange the tuna, avocado, cucumber, edamame and radish over the rice, don’t just dump it in the middle. It’s a poke bowl, not a bin.
6. Scatter over the spring onion, sesame seeds and shredded nori.
7. Finish with a drizzle of the leftover dressing, pickled ginger on the side, and a squeeze of kewpie or sriracha if you’re that way inclined.
8. Eat it straight away. This isn’t a meal-prep-five-days-ahead situation, despite what half the internet will tell you.

The rice matters more than people admit

Everyone obsesses over the fish and ignores the rice, which is backwards. Brown rice needs a proper simmer, lid on, low heat, and then time off the heat resting before you fluff it. Rinse it first to get the starch off or you’ll end up with something gluggy that fights the fresh ingredients instead of supporting them. I like it slightly warm under the tuna, not hot, and definitely not fridge-cold. If you’re after more on why the grain matters for how you feel through the afternoon, have a read of what actually helps the afternoon energy slump — brown rice’s slower release is exactly the sort of thing that keeps you out of the 3pm biscuit tin.

Building the bowl so it actually holds together

Layer it, don’t toss it. Rice on the bottom, protein and veg arranged rather than scattered, sauce last. That way every mouthful gets a bit of everything instead of you fishing around for the good bits by the third bowl. I serve mine with extra pickled ginger on the side because some people want more acid cutting through the richness of the avocado, and some don’t, and I’m not going to argue with either camp. If you want a similarly straightforward approach to Australian fish done without fuss, my barramundi with fennel and orange and the garlic and herb baked flathead both run on the same principle: good produce, minimal interference.

A variation worth having a crack at

Swap the tuna for sashimi-grade salmon or kingfish when tuna’s not looking its best at the counter, which happens more than people admit, especially outside peak season. The dressing works fine with either. You could also go a spicy route with a bit of sriracha whisked straight into the marinade rather than drizzled on top, though I’d argue that’s better suited to salmon than tuna, which has a cleaner flavour worth respecting on its own. If you’re keen on more fish cooked with a light hand rather than smothered, the herb-crusted snapper with crushed peas is worth a look too.

Why this earns its place on a Tuesday

This isn’t a Sunday long-cook, it’s a fifteen-minute weeknight fix that still respects the ingredients, which I reckon matters more than people give it credit for. Nutrition Australia’s guidance on fish intake backs up two to three serves a week as a reasonable target for most adults, and a bowl like this gets you there without any of the usual excuses about time. It’s also a fair argument for cooking properly at home rather than grabbing something from a bain-marie on the way past, something I’ve banged on about before in the quiet case for cooking at home more often. Get your knife sharp, your fish cold and your rice right, and there’s not much that can go wrong here. Which, frankly, is more than I can say for most of what passes for a quick lunch these days.

— Dave Forsythe, Golden Door Living kitchen