Prepare and Cook
Last Modified 23-May-2000
Tools needed:
- Ab iron
- Fillet knife
- Cutting abalone will dull a knife very quickly,
clean, then sharpen your knife with the ceramic
sharpening sticks often.
- Ceramic sharpening sticks (the diamond stick works
well also)
- Cutting board for trimming
- Pounding board
- a 4"x12"x 24" [100 x 300 x 600mm] header
beam scrap works very well
- whatever you use should be stable, heavy, water
resistant, and durable
- Smooth faced meat tenderizing mallet(s)
- I use hickory with a 2 3/4" [70mm] round
faced 5 1/2" [140mm] long head and a 10"
[250mm] handle
Illustration:
Ab Mallet
- Bowls
- Aprons
- Trash bags
Pop it free of the shell
Illustration:
Popping it out of the shell
- Put the round end of the ab on the ground
- Place the tip of your ab iron, bevel-side away from
the shell, at the base of the stalk that holds the ab in
its shell.
- Gently but firmly push the ab iron under the stalk,
popping the ab free of the shell (if you want a
scratch-free shell, use a piece of hard wood the same
size and shape as an ab iron)
- Don't detach the membranes from the shell yet.
IMPORTANT
NOTE
The California Fish and Game regulations state: "Abalone
must be transported attached to the shell." and "...Abalone
are to be prepared for immediate consumption, (Sonoma
County's guideline on immediate consumption is "Where's the
cook fire?" if there isn't one you could get a ticket.) once
detached from the shell." So, this is as far as you can go
in the preparation process, if you're going to drive home
after catching abs.
ALSO, for those of you who have a HUGE ab feed on
Saturday night, prepare only what you can eat. Fish and Game
has been known to walk through camp grounds after dinner
looking for abalone steaks in ice chests. (They can site you
for this. Why? >> There is NO way of measuring the
abalone the steaks came from.) (see regulation)
Gut
Illustration:
Separating foot from guts
Illustration:
Separating Ab from shell
Illustration:
Trimming guts from foot
Trim
IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE:
- Keep your knives sharp (a dull knife requires more
force to cut through something and will cause more damage
if you slip.)
- Always cut away from yourself
- Watch where you're cutting (abs are slippery
critters)
Slice
- Ab should be sliced horizontally
Illustration:
Slicing Abalone
(The steak closest to the bottom of the foot is
usually very tough.)
- One trick I use (especially for big ones): Cut the
trimmed ab in half vertically and then make you're
horizontal cuts.
Illustration:
Vertical slice trick for big abs
- Steaks should be about pencil thickness. (You can use
a meat slicer; but, it should be heavy duty. Abalone is
tough stuff.)
Pound
Cook
Traditional breaded and fried abalone
- lay out three shallow bowls in this order:
- flour
- scrambled raw egg
- bread or cracker crumbs
- dip the pounded abalone steaks in the flour, then
egg, then bread crumbs
- heat an iron frying pan and add a bottom covering of
oil, butter, or margarine
- you can add crushed garlic, chili oil, or other
spices to the butter for different tastes
- fry the breaded abalone steaks approximately 15 to 30
seconds a side
- serve up hot out of the pan (You should be able to
cut the steaks with a plastic fork.)
Poached abalone in white wine
- heat an iron frying pan and add some white wine, so
the wine is simmering
- place the abalone steaks in the wine and cover for 2
to 3 min (?)
- serve hot out of the pan
Whole baked abalone
- gut and trim the abalone
- put the whole trimmed ab in a plastic ziplock
bag
- pound it a five to ten times with a baseball bat.
(be careful not to split the ab; you just want to relax
it.)
- remove from bag
- lightly season (with garlic, white wine, sliced onion
or apple, etc. Whatever you like.)
- double wrap in aluminum foil
- place in the coals of the fire for fortyfive
minutes
- unwrap and eat
Marinated abalone salad
- slice and pound the abalone thin
- cut in to short narrow strips (1/2 x 1 1/2" [13 x
40mm])
- marinate in key lime and /or lemon juice for two
hours
- drain and serve cold
Grilled abalone
Abalone sushi
- (need recipe for sushi rice)
- cut pounded abalone steaks into strips about 1 x 2"
[25 x 50mm]
- make rice cake with the sushi rice
- put a small dab of wasabe on top of the rice
cake
- place a strip of ab on top of the rice cake
- serve with pickled ginger, soy sauce, and more
wasabe
Abalone burgers
- take pounded abalone steaks
- grind them in a meat grinder
- make patties out of the ground abalone
- grill on the BBQ (see tip above)
or fry in a frying pan
- serve on a sour dough roll with some kind of light
sauce
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Last Modified 23-May-2000
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