11 recipes. Page 1 of 1
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The abalone innards are fried with the rice in sesame oil, tinting the whole porridge a pale green. How green it gets, and how much it tastes of the sea, depends on how fresh those innards are, and that is decided when the abalone is bought. An egg yolk sits in the center of each bowl.
The abalone flesh is stir-fried in butter with garlic scapes, while the innards cut away from it get a light toss in soy sauce and go on top of rice. Past a minute the flesh turns tough; it spends only about 45 seconds in the pan.
Abalone scored in a fine crosshatch goes into garlic butter for a minute a side, gets a splash of soy sauce, and comes off the heat right away. The innards can be minced and melted into the butter too. The cooked meat goes back into its scrubbed shell to serve.
A whole chicken simmers for over an hour, until the broth turns milky, before the abalone, small octopus and shrimp go in. Adding the abalone guts makes the broth deeper still; whether to include them is up to the cook.
Steamed in the shell with only green onion and ginger beneath it, abalone keeps its sea-sweet aroma, with seasoning limited to a little soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil spooned over afterward. A shallow crosshatch on the thick side lets heat reach the center so the edges do not toughen while the middle catches up.
Chewy abalone, slippery sea mustard, and crisp cucumber with red cabbage give this cold salad three textures in every forkful. The whole dish hinges on a blanch of about 40 seconds followed by ice water, because abalone toughens quickly with heat. The dressing of lemon juice, plum syrup, and soup soy sauce stays light, supporting the shellfish's natural brininess instead of masking it. Serve it chilled as a summer starter or ahead of grilled dishes.
Mung beans soaked for 30 minutes alongside the rice break down with it in kelp stock, making this abalone porridge far thicker and creamier than the rice-only kind.
The abalone guts are fried with the radish in a little sesame oil before anything else, and they are why this otherwise clear soup turns faintly green and smells strongly of the sea.
Two tablespoons of sesame oil take the minced abalone innards and garlic over low heat, and the oil picks up their briny aroma before any rice goes in. Keeping the heat low at this stage is what tames the fishy edge of the innards.
Thin slices of abalone go onto the rice only when the surface water has nearly gone, then cook in nothing but the heat of a 5-minute rest, lid on and burner off, and stay tender. The finished rice is mixed with a dressing of soy sauce, scallion, minced garlic, and sesame seeds.
Young mugwort, at its most tender in early spring, gives this abalone porridge a grassy bitterness that cuts through the rich innards and leaves a clean finish. Pull out any tough mugwort stems beforehand, because they stay stringy in an otherwise silky porridge.