I have a bag of frozen ahi tuna steaks purchased from Costco. Some of them have been quite tasty when seared. That said, I heartily enjoy raw tuna, so I am intrigued with the idea of trying them raw.
Fwiw, the steaks are not labeled as sushi grade, but I am not sure how much that really matters. From my brief research, it appears that the primary determining factor for what qualifies as sushi grade is the fat & oil content of the fish. That might imply that these wouldn't be as tasty as fresh sushi, but it does not really have any bearing on whether or not these steaks would be good without searing.
Is there any reason that they specifically need to be seared?
Best Answer
With fish, you have two safety concerns: parasites and bacteria.
Freezing gets rid of parasites. It does not kill bacteria. You need heat to kill bacteria, that's why officially, food is only considered safe after being cooked to a specific temperature. Eating thawed uncooked fish is officially unsafe, and if you tried to sell it to people, the FDA would come after you.
This being said, if your personal safety standards are not as high as the FDA's (which are extremely conservative), nobody will stop you from eating it. It shouldn't be more dangerous than sushi, as long as you eat it immediately after thawing. There is the small probability of it being kept around some time before freezing (as opposed to sushi-intended fish which should be frozen on the boat immediately), but as fish deteriorates really quickly after death, you should be able to notice it smelling fishy if this is the case.