This week, we’re off on our travels again, away to the other side of the world, touching down in Japan.

It’s a country that’s been sitting at the top of my bucket list for decades now. I really must get my skates on and head off over there before it’s too late.

It’s an incredible place, so very otherworldly and properly ‘foreign’, with delightfully polite and charming people, spellbinding countryside and, of course, some of the best food on the planet.

The Japanese have elevated the appreciation of food into an art form, whether it’s the ethereally light batter of the crispest tempura, or the freshest slivers of fish laid over hand-rolled dressed rice to make the most delicate *edomae* sushi, or the silkiest soba noodles in the clearest broth.

There are specific words for the way food is arranged on the plate, such as *sugimori* (slanting), *yamamori* (mounded) and *chirashimori* (gathered loosely), and great care is taken to make the food look visually stunning in a simple, clean way to encourage the appetite and delight the senses.

The Japanese art of plating food could arguably be said to be as much an international export as the food itself.

These days, no self-respecting top-end chef would be without his tweezers and palette knife for arranging plate after artful plate. So this week, I thought I’d make one of my favourite Japanese dishes, tataki of tuna.

Tataki is a method of preparing tuna or large mackerel by searing thick pieces of the fish in a smoking-hot pan for only a few seconds each side. The centre remains uncooked, with that incredible texture that you only get with raw, super-fresh tuna, and the outside has a nice dark char to it, adding flavour and texture.

It was first created by a Japanese nobleman who had observed foreign visitors frying rare beefsteak, and thought he would try the technique with local tuna.

With the seared fish, I decided to serve a selection of crisp salad-y vegetables, shredded and sliced, along with a nicely citrussy miso dressing. And for a little textural contrast, some shards of deeply savoury sesame tuile biscuits.

These are terrific fun to make, and add a huge blast of deep *umami *flavour, bringing the whole dish together nicely. Before we go, a word about tuna.

Bluefin tuna, indisputably the best in the sea, is incredibly expensive (in 2013, a single 222kg bluefin sold for just over a million pounds – let’s just think about that for a second...) and is becoming quite rare due to overfishing. I think we should dial down the demand for a while to allow the stocks to increase, but it’s not likely to happen while the demand for sushi exists.

The alternative is yellowfin tuna, which, when good and fresh, can be every bit as good as bluefin for most recipes, and still possesses that great meaty texture and delicate flavour.

Try to insist on yellowfin when you visit the fish counter, and certainly make sure it’s ethically-caught, either by line or by dolphin-friendly net.

The sea is a precious resource, and stocks of may fish are dwindling because as a species we’re ignorant or, worse still, indifferent.

Everyone must help as best they can.

FOR THE TUNA:

500g tip-top-fresh yellowfin tuna

A little oil for frying

Maldon salt and freshly-ground black pepper

FOR THE TUILES:

110g butter

350g glucose syrup

40g miso paste

1 tablespoon sesame oil

75g plain flour

¼ teaspoon fine salt

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

1 tablespoon ground ginger

35g white sesame seeds

35g black sesame seeds

FOR THE SALAD:

1 mooli radish

1 large carrot

1 courgette

1 small bag breakfast radishes

1 bunch spring onions

A handful of mange-touts

A few rocket leaves

FOR THE DRESSING:

10g miso paste

5cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated

1 tsp unrefined golden caster sugar

3 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp fruit vinegar (red wine vinegar will be fine)

The juice of 1 lemon

1 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp grapeseed oil

2 tbsp spring water

METHOD:

To prepare the tuna, cut the fish into manageable pieces, ideally long rectangles about 5cm square. Season with a little salt and pepper. Heat a heavy-based frying pan until very hot, then add a splash of oil. Quickly sear the tuna for about 10-15 seconds on each side, making sure it gets a good colour but barely starts to cook through. Remove from the pan, pat dry with kitchen paper, then allow to cool completely.

Chill, wrapped in clingfilm, until required.

To make the tuiles, preheat the oven to 180ºC / Gas 4. In a medium saucepan, gently melt the butter together with the glucose syrup. Remove from the heat and whisk in the miso paste, salt, pepper, and sesame oil. Sift in the flour, stirring continuously. Add the ground ginger and sesame seeds.

Spoon onto a silicon mat or greaseproof paper in heaped teaspoons and spread out into loose circles.

Bake for 10 minutes, allow to cool for 20 seconds, then turn carefully with a spatula or palette knife and bake for another 2 minutes. Remove from the baking sheets and allow to cool over a wooden spoon handle or flat on a wire rack. When cooled completely, store for up to 2 days in a dry, airtight container.

For the salad, simply shred the vegetables into ribbons using a box-grater blade, vegetable peeler or food processor. Finely slice the breakfast radishes and the spring onions. Finely shred the mange touts.

Toss the salad ingredients together with the rocket leaves and chill until required. Make the dressing by whisking all the ingredients together until homogenised. To serve, arrange some thin slices of tuna on each plate, and arrange the salad around in a pleasing manner.

Drizzle with plenty of the dressing, and garnish with shards of sesame tuile.