Quick meal ends long day for the chef.

Byline: THE $10 GOURMET By Jim Boyd The Register-Guard

SPRINGFIELD - Here's the kind of quick dish that Allan Peterson, the afternoon and evening sous chef at the Eugene Country Club, fixes for himself and his wife when he gets home from work.

It's a salad that blends the flavors of late summer and early fall: grilled ahi tuna, red leaf lettuce, and slices of tomatoes and fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese drizzled with an apple-kiwi vinaigrette that's his own creation.

"I chose ahi tuna salad because it's a quick, fairly light dish," Peterson said. "I get home late at night, and the wife usually waits for me to get home and we sit down and eat together. It's quick to make, and right now most of the ingredients in it are really fresh - ripe tomatoes, lettuce, apples."

Peterson offered this salad as a chef's special at the country club a few weeks ago with good success. He had to shop around, however, to figure out how to fit the recipe into a $10 budget for The $10 Gourmet.

The $10 Gourmet is a feature that allows professional cooks to provide menu ideas to home cooks by preparing a meal for two on a $10 budget. Small amounts of kitchen staples don't have to be included in the accounting.

The solution, Peterson said, was finding frozen ahi tuna steaks selling for only $3.98 a pound at WinCo Foods in Eugene. Fresh ahi purchased from a local fish market would have cost three or four times as much.

Peterson also shopped for produce at Lone Pine Farms on River Road.

The ingredients he purchased cost $9.67. In addition, he used white wine vinegar, sugar, canola oil, salt and pepper from his kitchen stocks.

Peterson has been cooking professionally for 10 years. Starting in 1994, he received two years of culinary training at Columbia Community College in Columbia, Calif., and then worked at the City Hotel there before returning home to Eugene.

He worked briefly at several places in Eugene and Springfield, but has spent most of his career at the Eugene Country Club.

Ahi Tuna Salad With Apple-Kiwi Vinaigrette

For the vinaigrette:

1 medium sweet-tart apple (Gala or Granny Smith, for example), peeled, cored and diced

2 kiwi fruit, peeled and sliced

1/4 cup apple juice

2 tablespoons sugar

4 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1/2 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Other ingredients:

1 head red leaf lettuce

2 slicing tomatoes (preferably red and yellow)

1 (8-ounce) ball fresh mozzarella cheese

2 ahi tuna steaks, approximately 4 ounces each

Canola oil to rub on the ahi

Salt and white pepper to season the ahi

In the bowl of a blender, puree the diced apple, sliced kiwi fruit, apple juice, sugar and white wine vinegar. Add the canola oil in a thin stream while blending. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside until needed.

Note: Kiwi can be peeled quickly using a spoon instead of a paring knife. First, slice the top and bottom off the fruit. Then insert a tablespoon between the skin and flesh and use it to cut the barrel-like cylinder of flesh free from the skin.

Wash the red leaf lettuce. Peel off and discard or find another use for the large outer leaves. Cut head into quarters through the root end. Pat dry with a towel. Use two lettuce quarters for each salad. (Or, for a more common type of presentation, tear the lettuce into salad-size pieces.) Set aside.

Slice the tomatoes and the mozzarella into 1/4-inch-thick slices and set aside. You will need 2 slices of red tomato, 2 slices of yellow tomato and 3 slices of cheese for each person to duplicate Peterson's presentation.

Heat a grill pan on the stove. Rub the ahi steaks with oil and season them with salt and white pepper. Place the steaks on the grill pan and grill for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes per side. Cook the ahi steaks medium rare. Create a crosshatch of grill marks by rotating the steaks a quarter turn halfway through cooking on each side. (If you do not own a grill pan, sear the ahi in a conventional frying pan.)

Assemble the salad by placing alternating slices of tomato and mozzarella along one side of the plate and the leaf lettuce along the other side. Place the ahi atop the lettuce. Drizzle the lettuce and tomatoes with apple-kiwi vinaigrette.

Serves 2.

SETTLING THE BILL

1 Gala apple: 39 cents

1 Brandywine tomato and 1 yellow tomato: $1.22

1 head organic red leaf lettuce: 99 cents

2 kiwi fruit: 76 cents

1 can frozen apple juice concentrate: 78 cents

8 ounces fresh buffalo mozzarella: $3.38

2 frozen ahi tuna steaks: $2.15

Total: $9.67

CAPTION(S):

Tuna is served on red leaf lettuce alongside slices of tomatoes and cheese drizzled with vinaigrette. Brian Davies / The Register-Guard Allan Peterson, a Eugene Country Club chef, prepares an ahi tuna salad in his home kitchen.