Juicy, tender, boneless – and what a lovely color! What is this delightful comestible?

This morning, our cat caught a smurf! Apparently, it was collecting a late harvest of smurfberries in our garden when Azrael pounced on it.

Seems a downright shame – an awful waste. Such a nice plump frame whats-its-name has. Had. Has. With the price of meat what it is…

Recipe

While other tataki recipes call for a coating of spices (sesame, for example), we did not want to tarnish the beautiful color of this specimen.

Heat pan of sesame oil until is smokes and then sear all sides of the smurf flank. As far as we know, smurfs do not carry smurfonella or other diseases.

Using a very sharp knife, slice the flank diagonally, being careful not to tear the extremely tender meat.

Drizzle with a reduction of smurfberries (we couldn’t let those hard-won berries go to waste!). Garnish with a red mushroom house.

Reviews
AK: The meat is incredibly tender and flaky, but I am disappointed to find that there is not even a hint of gold. Could have used a little salt. The smurfberry topping was tart and delicious, but somewhat overwhelmed the delicate flavor of the flank.

Beth: It turns out smurf is somewhat bland and fishy. They probably spend a lot of time wallowing in swamps and eating algae to ward off starvation. I’ll eat beef nearly raw, but I really wanted to cook this longer and slather it with sauce. Steamed smurf houses in smurfberry sauce are great, though. And their little hats puff up into flaky pastries if you bake them.

Kristen: We had smurfberries growing in our garden? They are delish! Say what you will about the flavor of the meat, the color makes for spectacular presentation.