Making Portuguese Canned Tuna Oct. 27, 2018

Started by El Pescador, October 28, 2018, 03:50:14 PM

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humboldtdan

Ok, I didnt realize they were not pressure cooking the second time.  Doing it all at once may reduce excessive drying of the tuna, but there should be plenty of liquid with the tomato sauce and olive oil.  Looks tasty!

Brewcrafter

Always learning on this site!  Until Jigmaster mentioned it I never considered pH of the actual food vs. the solution (sauce) it is in, I have always considered pH of a sample to be consistent (to be fair, I'm always dealing with solutions - if your beer has major solids in it then somewhere something has gone seriously wrong...).  And there is that whole Pasteurization Units thing, but basically as he pointed out it is all a function of the factors of time/temperature/pressure.  This whole recipe sounded really, really good.

scrinch

Maybe the second cooking step had something to do with that index finger that was stuck into the EXACT center of the jar to make room for the serrano chile!   ;D

jigmaster501

To be fairly honest, many people have gotten sick and died over the years from family recipes just like this. It is unfortunate but some people just got lucky with family recipes and no one became ill. Many were not so lucky. My career in regulatory food safety has had me at the forefront of many illnesses and outbreaks.

I always encourage people canning, brining, fermenting, curing, canning, etc at home without advanced food science training to reach out to a process authority to validate a process like this.

Often times, the family recipe was just on the borderline of safety and now an ingredient is no longer available or was changed ever so slightly and now you are at risk for botulism. This happens quite often in the food safety world.

The pH of the tomato sauce will likely be much lower than that of the tuna and chilies and you have many factors to consider when trying to reach an equilibrium target pH. You have buffering capacities of the ingredients being acidified, the ratios of acidulants to ingredients needing acidification, heat treatment to destroy vegetative cells of pathogens and also spoilage microorganisms which can feed off of the acid in the container and cause the pH to rise while on the shelf in the closet.

Much of what I say probably gets people's feathers up because no one wants a family recipe to be questioned because people always take pride in their recipes. I would rather make someone uncomfortable and tell them the truth than to hear that they got sick and deal with the guilt that I didn't speak up.

I will add to my food safety for all post when I have time to address canning, etc. Things have been busy for me lately.


El Pescador

#19
I received a text from gigantic tomato growing contractor friend Jim, just as we landed in Juneau, AK on our way to Gustavus to fish with Gary the BUTT MAN.   Text said, "Albacore Tuna canning is ON with Portuguese Contractor guys!   You IN???"

Of course I'm in, we started the process last Friday nite.  Manuel purchased 25 albacore tuna from the Fort Bragg, CA docks.  Here they are being delivered - frozen SOLID!







The tuna were washed and make ready for a night in the cooler.



I took off to 3 Target stores to buy as man wide-mouth PINT jars as I could find.   Did find 18 cases with extra lids & bands.



Next morning we arrived at 4 AM, back at the shop to begin to process the fish.

Cut off the heads and tails, and wrap in 2 layers of AL foil.



I grabbed my three fish,  headed to Dominick's to drop one.  He was a true gentleman to get up at the early time of 5 AM and cook this fish for 4 hours.  THANK YOU SIR!!!!!



My fish were smaller and was told to cook them for 3 1/2 hours.   Dominick was nice enough to drive his fish over to the shop.

Buddy Jim is the cutter, I'm the loin stuffer.



Looking down the line,  Here is how we processed it:    4-5 garlic cloves, one hot Serrano pepper, 1 tsp. salt and 2 Tbs. Tomato sauce.  Top with EVOO, rim with butter knife to releaes the air in the jar, hit it again with a floater of more oil, wipe the rim, put on lid and band.  



Garlic is from Costco, peppers were grown in backyard of Manual



As a tray was filled with completed pint jars, off to the hot water bath for 90 minutes of boiling water, covered.



All told, the 25 tuna were processed into 346 pint jars.

My haul was 32 jars.



They brought out this cheese during our meal after all the work was done.  All I can say is the taste is FANTASTIC!!!!!





These concrete contractor guys were all crazy, BUTT the hardest working people I've seen.  Had another great time with them.   Can't wait for the next call.  I put an order in for their home-made Linguica.  Let's see...

Jennifer is making a label to put on top of the lid then Dominick I'll stop by to say THANK YOU for your help.

Wayne







Never let the skinny guys make the sandwiches!!  NEVER!!!!

swill88


You're a good man Charlie Brown!

I'll be there by the 28th.

steve

El Pescador

Stevemeister!

Next time in town, I have a jar with your name on it.  If the SF Bay Area is not a future destenation, I'll send one in the mail to you.

Let me know.

Check out the labels Jen made for our canned tuna jars!!!

The woman is amazing.



AND... she made a stack of the same labels for construction buddy Jim.   



Man, what REELY do us guys have to complain about????

Tight lines.

Wayne
Never let the skinny guys make the sandwiches!!  NEVER!!!!

Donnyboat

Great report Wayne bizzy day looks good, thanks for taking us along, cheers Don.
Don, or donnyboat

Fishy247

That's awesome Wayne! Looks like a fun time with good people!
Not to mention a heckuva reward....

mo65

Quote from: Fishy247 on October 10, 2019, 09:45:42 PM
That's awesome Wayne! Looks like a fun time with good people!
Not to mention a heckuva reward....

   I'll second that motion! Looks great Wayne! 8)

   
~YOU CAN TUNA GEETAR...BUT YOU CAN'T TUNA FEESH~


El Pescador

Well... we are doing it again!!!!

Portuguese canned Albacore Tuna!!!!    The Portuguese way.

Call came in last Saturday at 7 AM, Manuel asking "where are you??""   I thought of a couple of great answers, BUTT he is NOT that guy to take the funny ones!!!! 

He said, we're canning today, get over here.

I went over there, and picked up my 2 albacore tuna, ready to go.

The crew prepped the fish by cutting off the heads YES< saving them for Portuguese fish soup in the near future, and the tails.   Doubled wrapped in AL foil.

Fish were smaller this year, net weight around 16 lbs.



I immediately called Dominick, woke him up, to ask if he would bake one tuna for me.   PRAISE GOD the answer was YES!!!

Instructions were the following:

Fill the pans with 1" of water, bake at 375 degrees for 3 1/2 hours.   No more, no less.

Done with the baking, I headed down to the shop to begin the process of peeling off the skin and remove the long fins.

These guys are set up to do some serious canning.  Each large pot holds 28 jars, and he has the stoves & propane tanks to run 6 pots at one time.





We have the usual YAK time, while we loined out the fish, cut them into small thin pieces, put them in the pint jars, added this!!!   A HOT pepper.



3-4 garlic cloves, 1 tsp. sea salt, 2 Tablespoons of Tomato Sauce, then down the line to fill with EVVO, use a knife blade to release any bubbles from the jar,

cap it with a boiled lid and band and screw tight.

Time for a break, we enjoyed this lemon-flavored pudding tart.  Delicious with hot black coffee.



Check these out.  3 trash bins half full of a marinating Portuguese Red Pepper Sauce.   2 ingredients:  Red Peppers and salt, stirred twice a day, ferment for 3 months.



The orange pail is a batch is the REELY hot stuff.

These are waiting to be boiled.







Once out of the hot water bath, each jar is wiped down, and we wait for the magical sounds of jar lids popping down for a perfect seal.





The money shot!!!!



We are done, my haul is 29 jars, a large #10 can of Tomato Sauce and a fresh bottle of EVOO.  I gave the EVOO to Dominick.



And some of these French Peppers, they are either sweet or HOT!!!   The only way to tell is to take a bite!!!!
   


When I left home this morning, here is what I saw!!!!   The City of San Francisco all aglow!!!





and OHANA thanks to Dominick for stepping up and baking a tuna for me.

And to Rancanfish, he did a Birddog for me and found 2 cases of pint jars - wide mouth

and to MAXED OUT Ted!!!   he sent me 2 boxes of new lids and it was well appreciated.

THANKS, Gents for all you do!!!!  Some jars are in the mail to you both.

Wayne






Never let the skinny guys make the sandwiches!!  NEVER!!!!

Rancanfish

Yee haw Wayne.  You didn't have to reward my minor contribution but.....I am really excited to taste my first ever fresh albacore.  I am 66 years old and a tuna virgin.  Many thanks for thinking of me.
I woke today and suddenly nothing happened.

Dominick

I found 3 cats hanging at my back door.  The house stills smells like a cannery.   ;D  Dominick
Leave the gun.  Take the cannolis.

There are two things I don't like about fishing.  Getting up early in the morning and boats.  The rest of it is fun.

RowdyW

That is cruel. They could have left them in a box.  ::) ::)           Rudy

gstours

After reading this i got to thinking what was cruel was getting up that sleeping bear with a stick to bake your tuna while you eat tarts! :o