Awabi (Abalone)

My friend bought a license for abalone catching this year.  According to WA government website, the immensely popular Perth metropolitan season is limited to 9 hours per year, and this year it’s operated on each Sunday from 3rd of November to 8th of December, between 7am-8.30am within 800m of the shoreline.  

He went down to the beach on every Sunday and brought fresh abalone home.  His wife’s blog was filled with delicious looking abalone photos…  And one day he kindly dropped off a few abalone at my house!  

Abalone is very expensive in Japan and is considered as one of the high class food.  If you go to a Chinese restaurant in Japan you’ll probably have to pay more than 20000 yen for one.  (about AUD$200.00)

When I got those abalone, they were still alive!  As friend told me, I inserted a knife into the thinest side of the meat and cut it off from the shell.  Then, wash the meat with salt.  If you wash with salt, the meat retains its nice texture.  If you wash with sugar, the meat becomes softer.  My friend prefer soft texture, but I love the hard abalone texture, so I washed with salt 🙂

That night we had abalone steak with butter and soy sauce..  

Heat a frying pan and drop 1 table spoon of butter.  Add sliced abalone meat and sear.  Drizzle few drops of soy sauce and turn off the heat.  Serve immediately!  That’s it.  It was so nice 😛