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St Jude and the Cold Tuna Caper

St Jude sitting at pier 9 Fisherman's Terminal

The tuna fishing boat "St Jude" has had a stall at the Ballard Farmer's Market selling canned and frozen at sea tuna, both really high quality stuff.  On Thursday they sent out a notice to their email list letting folks know that they'd be selling off the boat at Fisherman's Terminal on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Whole flash frozen albacore tuna for three bucks a pound.  Well I'm a sucker for a bargain no matter how much work might be involved.  Thus begins the cold tuna caper.  One phone call and bing I had someone willing to take half the haul as long as they didn't have to dirty their hands in the caper.  So "ya shure, ya betcha" off to Ballard we go, technically Magnolia, to meet up with St Jude.  There we do a grab and go and for less money than many sport fishermen spend on fuel I walk away with a fine catch of the day.  

Another happy customer, he was picking up seven

I threw it on the kitchen scale to make sure I didn't get shorted, a little late, but what the hey.  Well the scale read ERR, or you're over weight.  Hopefully ERR won't be the word of the day for the catch of the day. Pop it into a cooler for a slow thaw. 

In the left corner weighing ERR?

Next day well it sort of looks like it might be ready.  From some past experience on mackerel, sort of a starter tuna, you want to filet it just before it's completely thawed.  Now I've fileted fish before just not an eleven-pound tuna.  Some twenty-first century education might be necessary.  So next up, watch a five-minute YouTube video, now I'm good to go.  And voilà around an hour later four tuna loins!  Do it again and maybe I could get it down to 30 minutes.  I still need to clean up the blood lines and skin it, but at least I didn't cut up the whole thing for poke.  

Four tuna loins almost done, just a little cleanup

So where to go from here, two loins went to a friend and lowered my modest financial commitment,  a bit went to another friend gratis, some ended up becoming poke, some got grilled, and some more was slow poached in olive oil.  One loin went back in the freezer.

Saturday night supper

Oil poached tuna for tonight's Salad Nicoise

Two days later my hands still had redolence of tuna, a small price to pay for a successful tuna caper.

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