The Pete Is On

Generally I enjoy all types of seafood and have loved sushi since I was first introduced to it when I was ten years old. Tuna, in all varieties, has always been my favorite raw fish and I would guess I consumed 10 pounds of freshly caught raw Yellowfin tuna at the Four Seasons in Bora Bora (our honeymoon, but I am name dropping) in a 5 day period. That trip got me addicted to raw tuna.

Oddly, I am not a fan of cooked tuna and won’t order it at most restaurants unless I am sure it will come out rare. The only exception is tuna collar which I was introduced to by a Bizarre Foods episode a few years ago. I first tried it at Jaes Grill in Brookline (now defunct) and found it to be very tasty and moist despite being completely cooked through. Ever since I have ordered it whenever I see it on a menu.

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To continue this extremely long lead-in, for years I have been jealous of my buddy John and his tuna fishing trips with his brother in-law Frank. Last year Liz (John’s wife) sent me a picture of the 130+ lb Bigeye tuna they caught and had me drooling at the huge slabs of meat they were pulling off. I also noted that the fish head was being disposed of which is what 99% of fishermen would do (and what the Ryans did on our fishing trip). Since I knew the collar was on there somewhere, and that I needed blog material, I asked him to save me the head of the next big tuna they got.

Lots of background. Anyhoo, I nearly pooped my pants when I saw this text from John a week ago, “Got you a tuna head dawg. From a 45lb Yellowfin.” Well then.

When they butchered the Yellowfin, the head was wrapped in a few trash bags and placed in the freezer awaiting a visit from the Ryans.

After hanging out at Liz’s (John’s wife) family house on Tuesday and Wednesday, including some sampling of the fresh Yellowfin, the frozen head came back to the Ryan LBI house. Where it sat in the fridge ominously for a few days.

I ended up waiting until Sunday to make an attempt at this. My main problem was the complete lack of online support on how to butcher a tuna head and remove the collar. Nothing. As I sat on the couch exhausted from my friend Lenny’s bachelor party, I started trying to rationalize throwing out the head, but decided to give it a shot based on the few pictures of butchered collar I had seen online.

After cleaning up some tuna head leakage in the fridge, getting my knives ready, and setting up the counter with some cardboard for coverage, I removed the bags (4 of them to be exact).

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The collar is the area between the gill slit and the back edge of the skull (where the head was cut from the main body of the fish). I think. I don’t have any action shots in this post since I was supposed to be making pasta with clam sauce for Mommy Ryan and Kristi Ryan. I advised them both to not enter the kitchen since I was, “doing some other stuff too”.

As I probed around the head, I saw that what I thought was the collar needed to be carefully cut away from the gills and hacked away from the top of the skull and the bottom as well. I also observed that most of a Yellowfin tuna’s organs are located inside the skull. After some careful trimming, dulling of my knives cutting through bones, and near finger losses, I came away with this:

Leaving just the tip of the head in the sink.

First step was making a cut through the bone on the bottom side of the collar to separate it into two pieces.

Removing the fins was very difficult and I did a job that would make any sushi chef cry in agony. The first collar was removed mostly by pulling which tore some of the meat away; the second side was a lot of big swings with a heavily dulled knife at that point. Then there was a ton of careful trimming of any bloody spots, areas close to the gills, and a rinse to remove what looked like small scales. Eventually, I ended up with a couple poorly butchered Yellowfin tuna collars.

As I mentioned previously, there were indeed a few interesting organs hiding inside the head and neck. I threw away the gullet and some stomach fat, but rinsed and kept the two organs that were easiest to recognize: the liver and heart.

At this point I stepped away and reassessed. I honestly didn’t think I would end up with anything edible, so I had to decide on the fly how I would cook everything. The grill seemed like a logical choice, and after starting it I searched the cabinets and fridge. I ended up mixing together a marinade/basting liquid of soy sauce, sesame oil, minced garlic, and a lot of brown sugar.

After the grill had heated up for ten minutes or so, the collars and organs went on.

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I left the gas grill on high and shut the lid for 5 minutes before flipping the liver and heart while the collars remained skin down with the lid open.

After a few more minutes I pulled the organs off and flipped the collars.

While the collars cooked some more, I headed inside to sample the heart and liver. At which point I discovered that my camera is now permanently in a Janet picture taking-friendly mode that does not take food detail shots well.

The liver tasted like liver. Liver with a mild fish flavor. Not quite as strong as chicken/beef/pork liver but you could definitely tell what it was. I was good with that after one bite. The heart on the other hand was awesome. Tasted like a great piece of rare tuna with the texture/density of a beef steak and a little bit of mineral flavor. I would definitely eat that again, possibly raw if the tuna hadn’t been frozen. Back to the collars.

From my few experiences, there is no nice way to serve tuna collar which is likely a contributing factor to why it isn’t on more menus. Anyone interested in eating it needs to pick pieces of meat off the bone using chopsticks, and there is no easy way to break it up into individual servings.

The collars were incredible. This has less to do with my skills than the freshness and quality of the catch, but it was seriously delicious. I generally think fully cooked tuna is fishier than the rare variety, but that wasn’t the case with the collar meat. It’s very tender like the meat near the salmon skin, but not as fishy tasting and distinctly tuna. My best impartial witness for claims like this is Kristi since she is not overly adventurous and hates fishy tasting/smelling seafood. After one bite, she dove in, as did my mother, and it quickly became an appetizer feeding frenzy.

The sweet and charred flavors from the marinade added heavily to the enjoyment and I would definitely use a similar marinade if I ever made this again. After a few more bites, I left the dish for a short time to finish my pasta with clam sauce and returned to find this:

Final note to the post is that I really appreciated the tuna head from Hard Four crew and hope that they will think of me after future catches. I will happily take any future tuna heads and do this again. Same goes to any other readers who go tuna fishing, just give me a little notice and I will be there. It’s a really, really good piece of meat.

No ideas for next week, will try to think of something.

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