Lê Hương

Tuna is a food source with high nutritional value. The tender and fragrant fish can be used in a wide variety of dishes. 

It contains unsaturated fat, protein, vitamin D, and phosphorous. Tuna is good for your health and helps prevent diseases in the heart, bones and joints.

However, tuna also contains a large amount of mercury and anisakis, a kind of parasite that causes allergies, so it is not advisable for some people. It is advised that, if you have never eaten tuna before, you try a small amount of fish first to test your body's reaction. 

Here are some suggestions for tuna in daily meals.

Tuna salad

A salad of fresh tuna and sprouts is a perfect starter for your meal, which is quite simple to make.

Chef Tống Sang from Phú Yên takes a recipe with 100g of fresh tuna (or canned tuna, if you prefer); 100g of watercress; 100g of lettuce; a quarter of a shallot; spices including sesame oil, lemon juice, chilli sauce, vinegar, roasted white sesame, salt and sugar.

All the vegetables should be cleaned properly before being cut into small pieces. Tuna is cut into small square pieces and left to dry.

The sauce is made by stirring all the spices together.

Then mix well all ingredients, put on the sauce, and stir well.

The dish will offer a way to enjoy the taste of fresh tuna without a fishy flavour. The fresh clean vegetable will mix well with the sour, hot, salty and sweet sauce flavours.

Baked tuna in tinfoil

Ingredients for this main course include one kilogram of tuna; onion, garlic, chopped chilli, lemon, spices of minced pepper, fish sauce, sugar, broth mix; and a roll of tin foil.

You should choose fresh tuna for the best flavour, which should be cleansed with a salt solution both in and out of the body to get rid of the fishy smell. Then you mark a sharp knife cut on its body so that the spice can absorb evenly inside the fish; chop cleansed onion and garlic; and cut ginger into thin pieces.

Marinate the fish with some salt and some broth mix and massage gently on the fish so that the spices absorb better. Add onion, garlic and ginger to the fish, then wrap all with the tinfoil and let it there for some 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees for 10 minutes before putting the fish in. Bake the fish for ten minutes, then take it out and cover it with some oil so it doesn't dry out. Turn the fish over and bake for another five minutes.

You can make a sweet and sour sauce to dip the baked fish in. The sauce is made of minced garlic, minced chilly, fish sauce, sugar, and broth mix.

The baked tuna in tinfoil keeps all nutrition of the fish with delicious flavour. The dish can be served hot with fresh vermicelli and herbs and wrapped in rice pancakes.

Egg wrapped with tuna

This is a very simple and delicious dish. You can mix well eggs, some roots and minced tuna. A ratio of 300g of minced boiled tuna, three eggs, some thì là herbs (dill), some fish sauce, cooking oil, salt, pepper, broth mix and sugar (to your taste).

You put the minced tuna into a big bowl, and add chopped dill and fish sauce. Break the eggs in another bowl, add spices and mix well. Heat some oil on a saucepan, fry the eggs first, then add minced tuna to the egg. Then fold the egg and fry well on both sides.

Take the fold out and cut it into small pieces for eating. Put some herbs on top of the dish.

Spicy tuna stew

The dish is more suitable for cool weather and served with hot steamed rice.

The ingredients for a portion for four people include 500g of tuna, a coconut, onion, garlic, chilli, oil, salt, sugar and pepper.

The cleansed fish should be marinated with pepper, sugar, and salt.

Mince the onion, garlic and red chilli.

Heat the oil in the saucepan and put the fish in to fry as well.

Then, take another saucepan and put the oil in to fry onion, garlic and chilli. Then, add coconut milk in with two spoons of sugar.

Some sliced pineapple can also enhance the flavour.

Boil the mixture before putting the fish in and add spices to taste. Stew it at a low temperature for 30-40 minutes.

The tuna should be well cooked and have beautiful colours and the natural sweetness of coconut milk.

Spaghetti with tuna sauce

You can use a pack of spaghetti or fettuccine, a can of tuna, a lemon, parsley cheese, garlic, 30g of unsalted butter, cooking oil, spices and basil leaves.

Before cooking, take the tuna out and cut it into small pieces.

Then, boil water in a saucepan, add some salt and oil and boil the spaghetti or fettuccine till it is soft. Take the spaghetti or fettuccine out and let it dry while keeping a bowl of boiled water. Mix the spaghetti or fettuccine with some oil and stir well so the strings don't stick together.

Heat oil in a saucepan at an average temperature, then add garlic and tuna in. Add some spices to taste and put the spaghetti or fettuccine in and mix well. Add butter and boiled water with some lemon juice and mix well. 

When it is mixed well, add some more minced parsley cheese, pepper and basil leaves.

The dish should be served hot with some Parmesan cheese. — VNS