Tuna should always be thawed 24 hours before being cut. Tuna come in sealed bags. Cut a small slit in the bag to allow air flow to the fish.

Take the tuna from the freezer to the fish cooler (across from the produce cooler). Place them in the designated Poke Bowl area. Update the date on the plate on the wall. Update Fish Inventory Log.

Tuna. You want to end up with cubes that are relatively even in size, around a half inch at largest. Cut tuna loin into ½ inch planks, then from planks into ½ inch strips. Once that’s done, cut the strips into ½ inch cubes.

Place the sliced tuna in a plastic bag to re-freeze. We cut 8-10 tuna once a week on the weekends to save time on busy weekdays.

Salmon. Start on the back side. There’s a tough piece of flesh that needs to be cut off first. Once cut off, turn to the skin side and cut out very thin pieces of skin until top of salmon is cleaned off of any grey skin. Proceed to cut salmon same as you would tuna.

1. If you are cutting tuna for back-up, cut them while still frozen. As you cut a piece, leave the others in the line cooler until you’re ready to deal with it, as to ensure it stays as frozen as possible

2. As you cut, place the pieces in a ziplock bag (1 tuna loin per ziplock bag)

3. Take as much air out of the bag as possible, put a large label on it and place in freezer

4. Lay the bag flat and spread out the contents within when putting in freezer, to ensure it thaws evenly when the time comes

1. Place in meat/fish cooler in Poke Bowls designated area to thaw. This should be done 24 hours (the day prior) before it’s needed

2. Once thawed, drain any liquids, use the strainer. Let tuna sit in strainer for 10-15 min.

3. If for some reason fish was not thawed OR it’s been an extremely busy day and fish is starting to run low and there is no backup, you’ll need to ‘hard thaw’ the fish:

   • • Take the tuna and place it in a white plastic pan

     • Fill a long shallow pan with warm water

     • Place the white pan (with the tuna in it) inside

     • After 15 min, break up the fish inside of the back a little

     • After 45 min, the fish should be ready. If not, leave out a little longer, making sure you’re constantly tossing the fish so different parts of it get exposed to the heated walls of the pan

No water should go into the pan where the fish is in, as to avoid “water logging” the fish. Often the ziplock bags let water in, causing the fish to not be discolored and not very presentable to serve.

Remember: 1 bag of fish can be enough for a thin long pan and for half of 2 small pans (for marinated and spicy fish)

• Scenario 1: If you open in the morning with a full line of fish and some backup (3 or more quarts), and realize towards the end of your shift that you have to full the line again with the back up leaving you with little to no backup, then you’ll have to go to the freezer, take 1 bag of fish and place it in the meat/fish cooler to thaw for the next day

• Scenario 2: If your closing and realize that the line is left with low amounts of fish, so much so that by the time the next days AM shift fills the line with the backup fish there won’t be any backup left, then it’s your responsibility to thaw 2 bags of whichever fish will be used the next morning. This is to ensure that the PM shift of the next day is covered. We should always think 1-2 shifts ahead of time

Always update the Fish Inventory Tracking after any fish operation