Processing and care of Tuna meat

[Killer]

I could not find much on this on Google or anywhere else.

I am going on my first tuna fishing trip this fall and had planned on filleting the tuna at the marina and then bringing the large loin pieces back in an ice chest to the house to bag and vacuum seal.

But I read that you do not want the meat to sit in fresh water unbagged? I just want to know if I would need to cut the loin up into smaller pieces and bag it in a zipLock before placing it into the ice chest with ice?

Even though this is a hunting site I figured someone here will know the best way to care for these fish. And yeah I know I am getting the horse before the cart as we may not catch anything!

[AtTheWall]

Big plastic garbage bags - double or triple wrap. Pat the filets dry with a few paper towels and stick them in plastic. Knot it water-tight and roll home straight to the next step with ice surrounding the tuna steaks.

I pull my steaks out immediately at home and lay them into glass casserole dishes, glass stir bowls and anything else I can stage them. Each gets a layer Saran wrap over them, and stick that into the fridge, till I can get to each container to process.

Then the processing begins with a Vacuum sealer.

I slice steaks to preferred grilling sizes, some an inch and a half or so. Smaller cuts and pieces, SUSHI with dipping sauces as I work. The Sushi stuff gets placed in other glass containers and it's eaten through the week.

Other cuts, that are more preferred for canning and AHI Jerky, get vacuum sealed and labeled as such.

I can thaw out the canned and or AHI Jerkey stuff, and run jerky or pressure cook canning operations over the course of several weeks.

The steaks immediately get frozen for later use.

[outlook8]

In for answers, I'm going middle of October...

[AtTheWall]

Steaks bagged up in smaller plastic bags for the drive home. All are dry and away from standing water. I typically wait till I have my steaks all bagged and then bust open fresh ice over everything in a quality cooler. At home, the water gets drained religiously and ice is added.

[AtTheWall]

AHI Jerkey. This stuff is awesome and it's extremely expensive on the commercial market. I make my own...Hawaii style recipe.

[czechgrubworm]

ATTHEWALL.. when you have time, would you share our canning process? Do you use a pressure cooker? I have salmon I would like to do the same with.

[AtTheWall]

Tuna chevice

[AtTheWall]

Pressure cook canned tuna with Jalapeno, Garlic, Onion, Sweet peppers and a shot of Kosher salt per jar.

The longer it sits - the better this stuff gets!

[35remington]

I cannot imagine what that jerky just taste like. It looks amazing.

[AtTheWall]

Canned yellowfin tuna recipe - it will work with salmon.

The key - 11 pounds PSI on the pressure cooker for 100 minutes.

Angie - Here's an excellent recipe for Yellowfin Tuna, which works with salmon. All fish canning follows this same formula, 100 minutes @ 11 psi. Nothing less than 11 psi.

I buy the sliced jalapenos - used for Nachos - comes in jars with jalapeno juice. I pour some of this juice, into each jar, as well as adding a few jalapenos. OH JOY!!!!

http://fin-addictions.com/canning/canning-tuna/

[J-Bob]

AHI Jerkey. This stuff is awesome and it's extremely expensive on the commercial market. I make my own...Hawaii style recipe.

This stuff is like crack!! Doug brought some on our tuna trip and it tastes incredible!!!

[Burnadell]

.

Something is missing in this picture...can't put my finger on it....oh, wait, it's ME!!!

[AtTheWall]

Here's the KONA style AHI Jerkey recipe. Doug made a batch and it was all I needed to get motivated to make this stuff as well.

Here's a recipe

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons of grated ginger
1/2 cup of soy sauce
3/4 cup of teriyaki sauce
1 minced garlic clove
4 tablespoons of sugar
2 pounds of fresh, raw tuna
Directions:

Cut strips about 1/8″ thick, 1″ wide, and about 3″+ long.
Marinate for about 5 hours.
Dry for 2 hours at 145 then down to 130 until jerky texture is to your preference. (Be sure to soak up the oil that will come out of the fish so it can dry properly)


I used my dehydrator and ran it till the tuna strips were very close to being dried out. I then move my AHI out to my Traeger smoker. Lay a big layer of aluminum foil, each jerky chunk gets it's spot away from the other pieces, and I run APPLE smoke at 180 degrees for about an hour and pull.

It's hard to not eat it all up after pulling it off he smoker - hot OH MAN!

[Burnadell]

Good luck, Danny. Where are you going?

[AtTheWall]

Something is missing in this picture...can't put my finger on it....oh, wait, it's ME!!!

Bowed up with Burnadell at the rail! This year, you get your chance at getting beat up with the rest of us!