Unless you have the sharpest knife in the world, cutting a huge and incredibly heavy tuna (or any other meat) requires impeccable skills. Butchering big pieces of meat must be done by professional butchers only.
As per WWF or World Wildlife Fund, General Santos (GenSan) is no longer the tuna capital of the Philippines and had proclaimed Mindoro as the official one.
Ideally, Chef’s timing in butchering tuna is ten (10) minutes. However, the man in the video did it under two minutes! He did it like he was cutting paper!
According to an article shared by ChefSteps.com, you can cut tuna in 6 steps and approximately done in 10 minutes.
Here are the 6 steps indicated in the article:
- Remove collars and head
- Slice away hard material along the spine
- Remove loins
- Remove lower loins
- Repeat steps 3 & 4 on the side
- Prep and store fillets
This guy is a Tuna cutting ninja! Watch his technique below:
I’m also wondering what happens to the head and other parts of the tuna?
Honestly, I can only slice or peel potatoes, carrots, or chicken fillet, and still get cut sometimes! Oh well, I would need to be trained by this amazing man! He got impeccable slicing/cutting skills, doesn’t he?
What can you say about his cutting skills? Let’s exchange thoughts on the comment section below!
The tuna’s jaw ends up as ‘panga ng tuna’, a pulutan staple in the Visayas. Marinated then roasted, it is full of litid bits and meat but one has to patiently fish them out of the nooks and crannies. The rest of the head ends up as ‘sinigang na ulo’. Like the panga, it is full of tasty sinew and meat but it’s the eyes that are reserved for honored guests. The tail portion is bony and sinewy but thanks to talented Pinoy cooks, it is deep fried ala crispy pata and is a must-have in restaurants like Chef Daza’s Wooden Spoon. While the choice parts of the tuna are exported, we have turned the ‘crumbs’ into unique delicacies.
Those are some mad skills to pay the bills.