Tuna saku is one form of tuna that you can find on the market. Tuna itself is a seawater fish which is very popular among people. That is why you can see the tuna meat is sold in different kinds of form such as canned tuna, frozen tuna, tuna saku, tuna cube, ground tuna, tuna loin and many others. Of course different kinds of tuna form serve as different function as well. That is why before you purchase any form of tuna, you should first know what you will do with that tuna so you can purchase the correct form of tuna for your dish.
Special Things about Tuna saku Compared to Other Tuna Form
Tuna as a seawater fish is caught on the high seas, it will then be gutted and gilled as soon as possible then chilled to be able to preserve its freshness. This type of tuna is the best form of tuna that you can find, however since the size of full tuna is too big to be consume even by the whole family, it might be very rare for you to find this tuna form in the market. Usually those tuna which caught by the fishermen will be brought into the factory for further processed before being supply to the grocery store.
The factory usually have their own specialty, thus they will have different kinds of way to process the tuna fish. For example some factory will process the tuna fish into canned tuna which you can easily found in the grocery store. But some choose to make tuna saku from the fish to preserve its freshness.
This tuna meat saku itself is actually a block of tuna meat with high quality. The reason why this tuna meat saku has high quality is because some factory uses professional grader which already certified to get the best quality of meat from the tuna to be made into saku block. The skin, bone and the blood line on the tuna meat will then be removed during the process. And the tuna meat will be shaped into saku block shape according to the size that they determine before. To keep the fresh color to still be red even after being frozen, the saku block is treated with cold smoke using filtered smoke from wood.
Afterwards each of the tuna saku will be vacuum packed individually to keep it still in the highest quality possible. Lastly they will be frozen in -40 degree Celsius to preserve its freshness by eliminating deterioration process of the cells on the meat. Seeing the entire process that is need to be done in order to create the saku block, no wonder it has high quality and more expensive than other tuna form.
From the taste itself, saku block is flavorful and tasty since it is made from high quality part of the tuna meat. It still has the moisture from the tuna meat which also tastes very sweet. The texture itself is usually firmer since it has been frozen in very cold condition. Usually saku block is used to make sushi or sashimi, which is why it should be made from high quality parts of the tuna meat. And since it is mostly serve raw, then it should also come very fresh to keep the natural flavor from the sea. However, if you do not like to have it raw, you can also use it to make tuna steak since the tuna saku size is already suitable to be made into steak. Usually it weights around 200 grams to around 500 grams per piece.
If you want to use this saku block, first you need to defrost it by keeping it inside refrigerator overnight or you can also place it under the cold water running from the tab. Remember that it is better to keep the saku block still in frozen condition if you do not want to use it yet since you cannot defreeze the product completely in the same super cold temperature used by the factory to make the tuna saku.
This form of tuna block is usually made using yellowfin or bigeye tuna fish according to the season on which you get the tuna saku, and since they have large size thus it will be easier to cut the meat into blocks.
