How to grill tuna belly

Ingredients for cooking:

• Tuna belly. Choose from the biggest fish to have more fat, more juice and more taste. Let's say, this is a 1.5 kilo chunk
• Marinade. We will have two marinades - for marinating the fish and for basting during cooking. The difference between them is not very significant, but the basting marinade should be more sweet and more viscose. These ingredients are approximate and you can vary them to adjust your taste. This is a recipe for one portion of marinade, and you need to prepare two portions:
  • Juice from limes, ½ cup
  • Soy sauce, ½ cup
  • Garlic - 1 bulb
  • Ginger - 3cm stick
  • Hot chilli - it is up to you, I do use 2 birds' eye
  • Salt - 1 tbsp
  • Sugar - 2 tbsp - only for the second portion, bor basting marinade
  • Herbs and spices - ½ tsp black pepper and 1 tsp of oregano, or whatever you like
  • Vegetable oil - ⅓ cup, only for first marinade, for marinating process.
• Fish basket for grilling - tuna belly is so tender, that it is virtually impossible to flip it without fishbasket.

Prepare tuna belly cut. Scale it - this is a bit difficult and messy process. But grilling with scales - this is the biggest mistake!!! Remove bones if any - pretty often, during tuna belly carving, a fishmonger cuts through the bones (ribs) and they should be removed.

Mix all ingredients for sauce. Garlic and ginger should be pressed or grated. Chilli should be finely chopped, which is easy to do with scissors. Basting sauce should be sweet but without oil.

Cover tuna belly with marinade and leave it for marinating for 3-4 hours, or even overnight. Longer is better. It is easy to do in a plastic bag, but don't forget to keep this bag with marinating tuna in the container in the fridge.

Place tuna belly into a fish basket and grill on a medium or high heat flipping and brushing with basting marinade every so often. Avoid burning and cook until it is well done inside (at least 75°C). It is ok to cook it for a long time - it will keep it juiced and tender.

Serve and enjoy!

Watch our video

on how to cook tuna belly and you can do it the same by yourself if you can find a proper tuna belly cut. It is easy to find in the fish market in Dumaguete in Negros, Philippines.