Tuna belly fillets with garlic and rosemary
June 7, 2008
Filed under Asia & beyond, Fish & other seafood, Healthy veggies, Low fat meals
The complete title of this entry should be tuna belly fillets with garlic and rosemary served with tomyao but that’s a pretty long title so I used the shorter version. The life of this dish depends largely on the proper seasoning of the fish fillets. If you try to scrimp thinking that salt and pepper will be enough, you’ll miss the entire experience.
If you’re wondering whether dried rosemary can be substituted, I’ll tell you that dried herbs are okay for stews but can rarely withstand the high heat of pan-frying. You might end up with burnt rosemary before the fish is done.
It is not absolutely essential to serve this dish with tomyao but I was fortunate enough to buy a tray of the stuff at Robinson’s Supermarket recently. Any green salad can accompany the fish but, often, it’s really worth trying combinations you’ve never experienced before.
This recipe serves 5.
1.25 kg. of tuna belly (skin on)
a handful of fresh rosemary, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, grated
salt
freshly ground pepper
juice of half a lemon
3 tbsps. of olive oil
Mix together the rosemary, garlic, about a teaspoonful of salt and lots of pepper. Rub the mixture into the fish fillets. Cover with cling wrap and let sit in the fridge for about 15 minutes.
Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan. Add the fish fillets to the hot oil, skin side down, and cook for about 4 minutes. Turn over, lower the heat a bit and cook for another 2 minutes. The reason the fish fillets are initially cooked skin side down is to allow to fish to cook as much as possible without letting the garlic-rosemary mixture touch the oil. You want them in contact with the oil for the shortest time possible so they don’t get burned. When the fish fillets are done, drizzle the lemon juice over them then serve with fresh greens.
In my case, fresh greens meant tomyao. I’ve eaten this vegetable many times before in Asian restaurants but never bothered to find out what it is. The stalks are crisp and have a distinct nutty flavor. I scoured the internet for an equivalent name in English and found very few references to this vegetable. Aloi Means Yummy referred to it as “noble leaf” while Kitchen Cow surmised they might be snow pea sprouts.
What I did was to wash and drain the tomyao. In the same frying pan where the fish fillets had cooked, I added another teaspoonful of olive oil. I added the tomyao to the oil, threw in two pinches of grated garlic and lots of freshly ground pepper. I tossed the greens in the hot oil for about 30 seconds, squeezed the juice of a lemon quarter over them and served them with the tuna belly fillets.
It was a great dinner. 
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Hi Miss Connie! I made this a while ago and I must say it was a wonderful recipe! It’s my first time to make something with rosemary. I used salmon because I didn’t have tuna. Thanks for posting the photo of this tomyao because it was my first time to buy it in the grocery store. I believe I’ve eaten it with noodle soups before. Here in Japan it’s called トウミョウ (toumyou) or 豆苗. In Chinese it’s called dòu miáo. And in English it’s pea sprouts.
I think I’m going to get addicted to it soon.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Oops something went wrong with the encoding and the Japanese characters in my above post are all displayed in garbage…
Anyway here’s a link I found about tomyao
http://www.evergreenseeds.com/snowpeashoots.html
LOL If I can get a steady supply of tomyao, I don’t mind getting addicted to it myself.
Love Tomyao. We also eat this raw. I usually put in in my Kani salad para may conting “crunch” ba. Pero medo pinipiga ko ng konti (not to much, just to bruise them). I also cut it into two. Sometimes ang haba medyo mahirap kainin. I get to buy them at Shopwise or Makati Supermarket.
The pictures look delicious but I have one question before I try the recipe. The second picture above shows herbs that appear to be wider than the rosemary that grows abundantly around here. Is there another name for the herb that you used, a tagalog name maybe? Thank you very much for sharing your recipes.
It is rosemary, Claire. It grows in my backyard from seeds in a packet that says they are rosemary. If it has a Tagalog name, I am not aware of it.