Tinned Grilled Tuna Necks

It’s always the obscure ones that taste the best—and tuna necks are pretty darn obscure. And small. And hard to harvest. And worth every bit of effort to make it happen. Tuna necks are a highly prized, very small cut from the top of the tuna’s neck to the start of the dorsal fin. There’s precious little on each fish, so you have to process a lot of tuna just to get enough to fill one small tin (like this one). There’s no higher prized tin of tuna on my list and its flavor is worth every. single. penny. And I know, this tin costs a lot of pennies, but it’s one to remember. Truly—I honestly remember my first tuna neck like it was yesterday. They have an amazingly rich flavor and roll-your-eyes-back-type of buttery texture. It reminds me of ventresca (belly) tuna because of its similarly decadent flavor, texture, and rarity. The folks at Güeyu Mar in northern Spain do something extra to these necks that truly set them apart: they grill them first. Working under the careful eye of chef Abel Alvarez, the tuna is first grilled over a wood fire before being tinned with olive oil. The grilling imparts a slightly smoky flavor to the fish. It also prevents the tuna from taking on too much of the olive oil while in the tin, so the flavor and the texture remain the highlight of this incredible fishy treasure.