Abalone 101

You've heard of abalone, haven't you? You may have seen jewelry made from the shell of the abalone. Maybe where you live abalone frequents the menus of seafood restaurants.

Around here abalone is hard to get your hands on. The commercial take of abalone closed in California in 1997 and now it can only be free-dived for.



B has a friend that went diving for some abalone and was kind enough to bring us one. It was like Christmas day for B!

The above picture is what it would look like as you opened the shell. Yeah, it's not so pretty.

There are strict diving regulations. You can only dive north of San Francisco & only during certain months of the year. You may only take up to 3 abalone in a visit and not more than 24 in a year.



This is what it looks like underneath. It had already been detached and cleaned for us. The knob on top is part of the foot that would attach to the shell. You've seen this on clams or mussels as well.

This thing was massive. We didn't think to weigh it but it was 8 1/2 inches long and 5.5 inches wide. Given the size it had to be somewhere between 15 and 25 years old.

You can only free dive meaning no air-providing devices like scuba gear and you can only detach abalone by hand or with abalone irons that meet certain specifications. The abalone has to be at least 7 inches long... no taking babies. Oh and no use of boats so you need to swim out your darn self. Really, that's not the half of it.



The next step is cutting off all the purple parts but all this talk about diving has made me hungry. While B preps our abalone I think I'll make sure this ice cream is in good condition.

I regularly dive into our freezer for the elusive carton of ice cream. There are very strict regulations that include but are not limited to partaking in ice cream only after dinner, never eating out of the container, using only ice cream specific scoops, and no more than 1/2 cup per day. Also, no digging for large pieces of cookie specifically.

Of course, all regulations are null and void during the 10 month gestation period. Amen.



After the cutting of the weird purple stuff we are left with this. Unlike clams or mussels the abalone flesh is much more solid. You can tell by the way the flesh shows the knife marks.

I can only describe the texture as similar to tako (octopus) or mirugai (geoduck) or giant clam. That description probably doesn't help any of you. In any case its solid with a bit of chew to it... but sliced thinly so you aren't gnawing. It's so fresh it doesn't taste the least bit fishy. It's mild and ever so slightly oceany.

For the record there are ways to cook this (and I'm sure change the texture) but for today we're just covering the raw element.



B sliced it very thinly and then made a sauce for it. Apparently this is the same type of sauce his grandfather used to make. It's a base of white wine vinegar with freshly grated ginger, grated garlic, white pepper, black pepper and a splash of soy.

Have you ever had abalone? How was it prepared?