First try with Yellowfin

[sandiegosteve]

I just got a GMG Daniel Boone and am having fun playing with it.  I do a lot of fishing and we had a great year for yellowfin tuna in San Diego, so it was my obvious choice to test.

I portion out my fish and vacuum pack it.  It then goes into the freezer.  For this test, I pulled two small packs.  I move it to the refrigerator from the freezer.  After about 6-12 hours, it is usually defrosted enough to take the vacuum bag off.  I then wrap the fish in paper towels and put back in the refrigerator to finish the defrost. 

To brine, I added the following to a zip-lock bag for about 4 hours. I wish I wrote down exactly what I added...

• Soy sauce - get the stuff from Trader Joes that has minimal addatives
• Wasabi paste - the green pre-mixed stuff from the grocery store.  A solid dollup.
• ginger powder
• a little extra salt
• some brown sugar (about 4x the salt, but still not a lot)
• garlic (pre-minced stuff from the jar)

After about 4 hours, I turned the smoker on to 160, pulled the tuna from the brine and patted it dry with a paper towel.  I sprinkled a little more brown sugar on it (next time I won't do this).

I put it on the smoker for about 80 minutes.

It turned out very good and even got great reviews from my fish monger friends.

The next batch will be bigger with a bit more wasabi.  And maybe some black pepper.

IMG_20141224_183128654.jpg

• sandiegosteve
• Dec 29, 2014

 

[crazymoon]

Nice smoke !!

 

[welshrarebit]

I do smoked marlin like that, but without the wasabi. I tried to do a smoked tuna belly that way but I didn't like it to much; I think it had more to do with it coming from a 220 lb. tuna and the texture wasn't that good.

Nice looking smoke and thanks for the recipe! I'm gonna be adding some wasabi next time...