The first time I ate abalone, I was extremely skeptical. I mean, these things live their lives attached to rocks eating kelp, and they are essential giant snails. However, my dad, being the genius cook that he is, and with advice from other abalone hunters, developed a method to cooking it that makes it pretty delicious.
But, the first step to catching your own food is cleaning it, which can be a pretty long process.
Keeping your abalone in salt water ensures that the abalone die a slow death. Killing them quickly often makes their muscles tense up, making the meat hard. The more they die relaxed, the less tenderizing you have to do later.
Next, you have to take your abalone iron and pop the meat out of its shell, without breaking the meat.
The next step is to remove the guts from the shell. You can go through the guts later, and you might find a pearl.
After, you’re left with a beautiful, albeit a little foul smelling, shell. Some people turn the shell into jewelry. My dad keeps the shells in his garden as a sort of disturbing “abalone graveyard.”
The next step would be to thoroughly wash the crap (figuratively and literally) off the abalone. No doubt there might be some residual kelp, rocks, or whatever.
I’ve been told you should also remove the black portion of the abalone, because it is slightly toxic. This confuses me, because I was also told that it is the most delicious part. Nevertheless, I opt to cut or scrub it all off.
After it’s all nice and clean, slice them up into little thin pieces.
You can also tenderize each individual pieces. Abalone can be tough, so it’s important to tenderize the abalone at one point in time, whether you choose to do it right after you finish washes and cutting off the black portion, or if you want to do it at the individual piece level.
Now comes the delicious part: We prepare it like Tonkatsu or any breaded item. Cover it with flower, then egg, and then panko breadcrumbs. We prefer two combinations of breadcrumbs; one with regular panko, and the other a mix of coconut and panko.
Then, we lightly fry each piece in peanut oil for just a few minutes until golden brown. The result is golden melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness.
Finally, we dip each piece into some sweet chili sauce, or some grated daikon and soy sauce.
The result is a delicious, hard-earned meal. Food never tastes better than when you’re involved in the process from hunting, to cleaning, to cooking!
Yesterday, Alex and I met our friends Will, David, and Candice from Artemis Clover Photo. After a thrilling game of mini-golf, we ate at Kabuki Restaurant for a sushi dinner
Hole-In-One on the 18th Hole!
We got a variety of rolls, and I was enjoying the conversation so much that I didn’t really get a chance to take pictures. The ikura sushi was pretty standard…nothing to rave about.
Ikura (Salmon Roe)
However, the garlic roll is an interesting point of discussion. A really unique mix of flavors, and definitely a flavor profile different from traditional Japanese food. There was a hint of mint in this roll, and the garlic chip added an intense flavor that sat at the top of your palate. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good thing. The garlic overpowered the sushi. My first bite wasn’t that bad, and I thought it was interesting…but the second bite was just not that great.
I used to be the kind of sushi eater in which I most enjoyed the ones that strayed away from traditional Japanese flavors, but I’ve learned to love the kind that simply showcases the fish through simple, clean flavors…even the Tuna sushi had too many frills on it for me to truly enjoy.
During our dinner, our friend Will mentioned a YouTube video that I thought would be great to showcase here. If you haven’t seen this yet, you’re in for a treat.
In my attempts to expand my palate and my ability to recognize different flavor profiles, I’m spending a lot more time eating slower and really thinking about the tastes. I’ll be very honest…I tend to eat incredibly quickly. One time, I went to dinner at Kushi Shabu with my girlfriend.
Shabu-Shabu is a kind of Japanese food in which you have a boiling pot of water or dashi (broth), and you cook your meat in the boiling water, along with vegetables. You can dip the meat in ponzu or other types of sauces. Delicious. About 15 minutes into our dinner, my girlfriend goes into the broth to look for more meat, only to find there was nothing left.
‘Did you eat all the meat?’
‘What?’
‘I can’t find any more meat in the broth.’
‘Uh..’
‘There was 40 pieces!’
‘Right…how many did you have?’
‘…5…’
OOPS. Well, look…if she wasn’t so talkative then maybe she would have gotten more meat. And let’s be honest, I’m a competitive person…maybe subconsciously I thought of it as a contest and thought had to finish the most meat. I WIN.
ANYWAY, I’m trying to slow down when I eat…and I learned from Gary Vaynerchuk with the incredible Wine Library TV about the importance of smell. He talks about the smell of wine as if it’s a ‘trailer of a movie’. It gives you a preview of what to expect…and much like the movies, sometimes you get something you don’t expect, like Bridge to Terabithia which makes you think its an epic fantasy, when really there’s about 5 minutes of fantasy in it.
…not that I’ve watched Bridge to Terabithia…
I think Gary’s same principle applies to food.
How often do you smell your food? I’m guessing not too often. And you know why? Because people look at you funny when you smell your food. And I mean really smell it, almost digging your nose into the food. But try it! Food gives off an amazing aroma, and you should enjoy your food with all five of your senses. So next time you go out to eat, make sure you give your food a big whiff.
If you don't watch Friends, you're not going to get this.
In my attempt to learn both food photography and basic photoshop in a week, I definitely went through some trial and error.
BLURRY FAIL
Tip #1: USE MACRO SETTINGS!
Oversaturated Japanese Curry
Can you even tell that’s an egg? I definitely over-saturated the color here in Photoshop. FAIL. The egg is like, unusually yellow. If I opened up a soft boiled eggs and saw that the yolk was that color yellow, I would be a little weirded out.
Half-Bitten Mochi
Half-Bitten food…not that appetizing to look at with few exceptions. I mean, who really wants to see my teeth marks in any part of food I’m showcasing. I wanted to show what the inside looked like though! So I tried this:
Mochi Attempt 2
Honestly, not that much better. This mochi still doesn’t look appetizing to me.
Have any food photography tips? Leave a comment.
In the summer of 2007, I worked at a start-up company, JapanesePod101.com, for 2 months. During that time, I traveled all over Japan, and ate some of the best food of my life. On 6/23/2007, I decided to check out Tsukiji Market, Japan’s famous fish market. Unfortunately the auction starts before 5:00 AM so you have to wake up to catch the very first train in order to catch any of the auction.
I woke up at 4:45 to catch the first train. The only people who are up at this hour are ambitious joggers, or drunk people who missed the last train…
After a bit of searching, I finally found the fish market!
After that, my friends and I headed straight to a sushi restaurant where we had the freshest sushi in the world.
Delicious! Talk about melt-in-your-mouth sushi. This sushi tastes nothing like it does in the states. Notice the ‘toro’ sushi on the far right. You can see the marbled lines of fat in this delicious piece of fish. I gotta say, every other sushi experience just doesn’t seem the same after eating fresh sushi from Tsukiji Market.
Here’s a short video of the fish market auction:
Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-hour week and leading the lifestyle design movement, is a pretty awesome guy. Alex and I both love...
Name: Original Tommy’s Hamburger Location: Beverly and Rampart. 2575 Beverly Blvd. Prices:...
Read the Post »
The Financial District in LA can be foreign ground to even the most knowledgeable Angelenos. With the...
Read the Post »