How do I prepare Tuna for Sashimi?

[mini696]

Hi everyone,

If I eventually catch a tuna, how should I best look after it if I were to make Sashimi? Thats RAW for the non-familiar.

How should I cut the tuna to bleed it properly?

Which tuna species (in your opinion) is the best eating raw? Personally I have found yellowfin very tasty.

Any other recipies for tuna? Links to previous posts (I've searched but not found)?

Regards
Mick K

[Maria]

Mick,

From my experiences, Yellowfin are the tastiest of the lot.

When you get em onboard, kill ASAP and bleed as much as possible before icing in a slurry.

Generally take the fillets off and skin them first. Along the middle of each fillet you'll see a heavy blood line. Cut the fillet down the middle along the blood line, then shave the insides of the two pieces to get rid of the rest of the blood line.

With these two (four with two fillets) pieces of meat, slice slightly diagonally downward to make very thin slices between 3 and 5mm thick. Using a very sharp knife is the key to getting nicely cut pieces.

Then, mix up in a bowl half a cup (or more as desired) of quality soy sauce, and one tablespoon of wasabi paste. This paste is hot stuff, but it isn't hot when mixed with the soy. Just creates a nice bite. Again, adjust the paste to suit whatever your tastes are. Whisk these two together so there's no solid bits of wasabi in the brew. It should all me mixed in.

When this is done, lay the pieces of tuna in the mixture and ensure they're all covered evenly. If you havn't got enough sauce to cover em, make up a bit more. Cover the bowl once they're all in, and leave it for about 30 mins to an hour. I throw mine in the fridge as it marinates and tastes better chilled.

After that, take each piece out, lay them on a plate and throw a bit of sauce over them, or alternatively have a dipping bowl handy. That's all there is to it.

Eating the stuff completely natural without the sauce is alright too, but my mouth waters just thinking about the soy/wasabi method.

Hope this helps.

Ben

[mackmauler]

Ben has rapped that up, I will help with the bleeding part ;D pics may be easier to follow ;)

[roz]

Just about all tuna is acceptable even Maktuna, so is Kingfish and they even use yellowtail. I have tried the lighter part of Maktuna and it's ok, besides there are heaps around at the moment and not that difficult to catch.
First, bleed fish - I cut its throat and a slice to the base of each side of its tail if you like.
Put fish on ice immediately.
When ready to serve, fillet, trim and skin. Bring to room temperature, making sure you have washed it in fresh clean water. Dry fillet.
Using a very sharp knife with a thin blade, slice the fillet into thin slices about 3-4mm if you're a beginner to sashimi. Arrange on a plate.
The sauce for dipping is made with a mixture of soy and Wasabi. Each person should have their own dish to mix the Wasabi to their own taste.
Thats about it. Sashimi is an acquired taste and may take a little getting used to.
Will post another raw fish recipe called Cavandi, which, I think is a good way to start on the raw fish thing, infact most people won't even realise they are eating raw fish when they try it.
Best of luck.
Roz

[Maria]

Unfortunately ate all the tuna from Monday's effort at a bbq on Monday night with all me mates. Next time will take photos to show preperation, otherwise I'd do some for din dins tonight.

Ben

[mini696]

Great!! ;D ;D

Thanks for the replys. Looking forward to seeing some pics. I would like to get onto some soon. I've heard Bream is ok for it also.

Do you let the fish bleed prior to putting it on ice or doesn't it really make a difference?

Thanks
Mick K

[Maria]

Bleed as much as possible before icing, however I think the cold slurry will thin the blood out and make it all run out anyway. Might be wrong. Best just to bleed as much as possible before icing. Never used more than a cut throat, and that seems to work fine. There are other methods as mentioned by Roz - up to you though and depends on how serious you want to get into your sashimi.

Regards

Ben

[Mad_Barry]

I love it Sushi style, much the same set up as above with the 'seaweed' and rice.

Found this interesting post ba a guy called Danny Katz on a cooking site a while back while looking for tips and kept in in my recipe folder,

Sushi would have to be one of the greatest culinary creations of all time, but I've often wondered how it ever came into being: at some point in history, a Japanese food-inventor must have turned to his wife and said "Honey, how about this for an idea? I take some old stinky strips of dried dead seaweed, a handful of gluggy cold over-cooked rice, a few slivers of fish that I won't even bother cooking, then I'll roll them all together in my grubby greasy hands, I'll smear them with weird green paste that makes your nose really hurt, then I'll charge people $36 for entree size, and $56 for deluxe size, which is exactly the same as the entree size, but it's got some extra slices of raw pickled ginger that nobody wants to eat anyway" and she said "Darling, you're brilliant, IT JUST CAN'T FAIL".

That's the thing about sushi: it may be delicious and delicate and divine, but if you actually stop to examine each of the individual sushi components, you realise that this dish should be standing trial for Food Crimes Against Humanity. First of all, there's the seaweed: now as far as I'm concerned, seaweed is not technically an eating thing - in fact, the only practical use for seaweed is when you're at a beach, you're making a naked-woman sand-sculpture, and you need a bit of pubic hair in a hurry.

Then there's the rice; people say it's very hard to make sushi rice, but I've been making sushi rice for years, just by making normal rice without any rice-making skills. I pour a random amount of rice into a pot, I pour a random amount of water into the pot, I leave the pot on the oven for a random amount of time - usually until the house is filled with a random amount of smoke. Then I pour in more water to stop it burning, and I've got myself some sticky mushy sushi rice - you just need to pick out the brown bits.

And finally there's the most notorious sushi ingredient of all: the raw fish. Now every mother on earth has told every child on earth NEVER to eat raw fish, because raw fish can give you a tapeworm, and the tapeworm will live in your stomach, eating everything in there - except for raw fish, because the tapeworm's mother told it not to.

But this is the miracle of sushi: somehow all these negative components have come together to create something truly irresistible - sushi is a bit like me in that way. I'll always remember the first time I tried the stuff; it was back in the early '80s and I was going out with the most sophisticated woman I'd ever met - she listened to Spandau Ballet, she wore marble-wash jeans, and she had a Miami Vice jacket with such enormous shoulder-pads she looked like a table with a head sitting on top. And she was into Japanese food: she took me to a little Japanese restaurant and ordered a plate of sushi - the things were small and colourful and beautifully wrapped, like lucky dip prizes from the Father's Day stall at primary school. I didn't want to eat them but I had no choice: I wanted to win her respect, I wanted to capture her heart, I wanted to go back to her place afterwards and have a California roll on her futon. So I forced myself to try one, and it was pretty good, it was very good, I COULDN'T STOP EATING THEM. I even tried a bit of that green wasabi paste: she said "Be careful with that, it's pretty hot", and I said, "Come on baby, I've been around, I know how to handle myself", and I impressed her by eating a whole glob in one go - and that's why I don't have a sinus cavity anymore.

[Fishinmishin]

To bleed in the most effective manner, try cut throat while still alive as when alive as the blood pressure is much higher and heart beats push out even more blood.

[casey1]

HEY dude im a chef get a bonnie bleed it n send the fillets to me? LOL seriously get a tuna cut tail n throat fillet thinly soak on ice n serve with asian(prostitutes) soy and wasabi its very nice :D