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!
