Jul
03
Foie Gras
As surprising as this may sound, sometimes, I really don’t want to cook. I just don’t feel like dirtying up endless pots and pans and I don’t know one person on earth that enjoys doing dishes. Yes, with this dish, I didn’t even use any dishes….You’ll see what I used instead.
This dish showcases Sea urchin, and sea urchin only. Olive oil, salt, and lemon were the only flavorings to enhance the dish.
How many of you guys order sea urchin, or UNI at Sushi restaurants? I love sea urchin, it really is Foie Gras of the sea.
Its funny that the exterior look of it is so menacing, what with all the spikes jutting out, but the inside is super tender.
Don’t mean to scare you all with this picture. I know, its gross. I opened the sea urchin with a scissor, and this was what was inside, a goopy mess. The middle piece (the white thing) is what keeps all the “tongues” (orange parts) together. All of this needs to be washed and cleaned to be eaten.
To my amazement, after washing the parts off thoroughly, a beautiful pattern was presented in front of me. The little dots were formed from the sea urchin meat inside, while they were sitting in their respective sections. There were five housed in this sea urchin.
Nature’s imprint. Isn’t it beautiful?
This is the edible portion, and what it looks like after they are cleaned.
Before serving the sea urchin, I laid down several lemon slices inside the sea urchin’s shell.
As I said, this post involves no cooking. All I used was olive oil, lemon, and salt to flavor the sea urchin. If the food is fresh you really don’t need much to flavor it.
I squeezed lemon juice on this, and now a good dosage of olive oil is added. I served the sea urchin in its own shell. As I said, sometimes I don’t want to cook, or do the dishes.
OOOOOHHHHHHHHHH
only you that can make an ugly thing becomes pretty!
but i think the avocado salad is still the winner!
ive tried it and my husband seems confused haha
but it tastes super good!
Wow this looks so amazing and delicious
Having seen Sea Urchin's in the sea and on my plate, I was gripped by your pictures, and how you prepared it, absolutely AMAZING!
xx
the weird and wonderful thing about sea urchin is that the part we eat are its sex glands. such big glands for a tiny little creature.
oh my god! The tongues!!
This is actually the first time i see what the inside of a sea urchin looks like. I must admit, i'm a little disturbed haha
AND THE SEA URCHIN BARES IT ALL…I'm a little disturbed as well, I've never tried them. Now I don't know if I ever wil!! I hope it doesn't fight & lick back when eaten. You're amazing -as usual!
Yeah, you did my favorite food! Sea urchin is so perfect in it's natural state it definitely doesn't need much. I love how the taste varies – nutty, sweet, oceanic. Where do you purchase it whole? I do love how beautiful the whole thing looks. Like art. Another great post – love your blog.
Beautiful photos as usual, Ji.
I have to be honest, I've never tried it. I'll keep a lookout for it the next time I'm at a sushi restaurant though!
I adore your food posts! Your detailed preparation and care is always so inspiring. Even with it's as simple as this you serve it with flare and class. Keep these kind of posts coming, we all love them!
such a unique dish. and your photography is amazing, i very much enjoy coming to your blog!
That looks pretty damn good, the no cooking part is a plus lol
I didn't know what sea urchins looked like, least of all whether they could be eaten! I'm freaked out, facinated and hungry all at once… and I HATE washing up too… maybe sea urchin is the way forward! But where do you buy this kind of thing – if walked into my local fishmonger and said "mate, got any sea urchin?" I'd receive very funny looks
Looks beautfiful though!
finally a dish that is familiar to me! in greek islands people usually eat this , actually you can find it very fresh and cheap there.. still a very delicate taste!!
very interesting.
Sea urchin is one of the most amazing seafoods but the one that is most forgotten. I love them so much. So soft and smooth. Melts like butter.
Is it actually sharp or pointy to hold? How do you cut it open? It looks unbelievably grim, but most seafood does. Kind of like cheese and the smell…seafood has its freaky looks. It's always worth getting past the aesthetics though.
I've eaten Uni since my childhood but never ever knew the inside looked like that!! Wow… your culinary adventures totally open my mind to new things! Thanks!
cable zombievactually the spikes on this are supposed to JUT OUT all the way, but as you can see the spikes have sort of fallen and collapsed so it wasn't as painful to hold but it is quite precarious to handle. I wish I could have showed what it looked like fresh out of the sea but these sea urchins underwent some serious handling while being shipped to me.
LOVE IT. Uni is so delicious. It's always a must when I go to sushi places. Your piece is really fascinating because you take us into the process from the spikes, to cutting it open and exposing the flesh. Great stuff and you are extremely talented as I have witnessed in your previous entries. For the others, I know the uni looks freaky, but it's like ice cream.. sweet and creamy.
Your pictures of the sea urchin are so beautiful. I have eaten uni before and I love its creamy flavor but in small amounts. Never knew that this was how the inside of a sea urchin looks like once it is cleaned.
Shit, I totally cringed at this.
i'm following your blog now. It's great, I love it.
Ah. I'm so very impressed that you actually do this by yourself. At home in HK I always see packets of already shelled uni, and in the US, have not been to the right places at all and have never seen it actually. I'm sure it's around somewhere. I've never attempted to even prepare this because I always imagined that it would be impossible to do! But look at you!vThis sounds great, and the simple ingredients that you used – ahhh, delicious! Really exciting. mmmmhm. Now I want to go eat some sushi and order uni.
Lorraine,
I suppose the strangest ice cream flavor would be UNI. I don't know if I'd eat it though. It would definitely be the strangest, as I have already seen some strange ice cream flavors coming out.
I've never had sea urchin before but this looks incredible, must be brave enough to have a go now. x
i love uni but i've never seen it like this. they kinda look like tongues!
Yikes, I am a vegetarian and I don't know if I could stomach this. The texture sort of reminds me of a tongue… but beautiful to look at none the less. Its so amazing to me how many new foods you introduce to the fashion blogging world! So inspirational!
I have a new blog & shop!
MonochromaticFacets.blogspot.com
Hmmm…I love this stuff… just by itself really (similar to oysters…) without any distractions from the lemon….but that could be my personal preference for that straight-from-the-sea taste…
Your Chanel amazingness was…er…amazing…
MMM Uni! God, I love this stuff. Especially uni/shiso leaf tempura.
I particularly love the uni shell. I think it's beautiful, especially the way you photographed it!
This post completely reminded me of some fond memories of when I last visited an old friend in Tahiti. It involved searching her property for the creature, cracking them against the rocks and eating them as we went. Okay, I didn't do the actual cracking, I had some help. haha.
Robyn- It is actually not that hard to open, although it does seem quite tough at first I was a bit intimidated.Susie-Now that you mention that, I have to say I agree with the lemon comment. Maybe this dish really needs nothing but a bit of salt.
Oh wow, you seem to eat the most exotic dishes! Or I guess I'm just really sheltered when it comes to food. Never tried this before, but it looks delicious!
Never seen an inside of it, this is very exciting!
OMG, your photos are always so absolutely stunning!!
xo
xo
Thanks for this post! I LOVE eating uni at restaurants (and probably have it once a week), and for weeks I have been contemplating buying a fresh one to prepare at home. This looks so amazing! I am definitely doing it this week if I can find one.
The Uni looks delicious. Love the shell plating
WOW. This would make an amazing piece of jewellery. I mean look at that first photo. All of those spikes would be oxidised silver and those spheres made of gold. I'm putting this on my blog, and on my studio wall.
i love uni straight up..so clean n sweet…i used to eat at japanese cafe in la that made creamy sea urchin rice…sooo good..ive never tried it with olive oil and lemon tho..love all ur food posts…naiyana
namedrop http://readplatform.com/staying-in-versus-going-out/ <3
favorite food on earth. where can you pick up fresh uni in nyc?
I think you need to have your own TV show for cooking. I love sea urchin.
Those spikes in the first picture look like we have use it as a hat???
Hope you having a lovely day,
xoxox
Nini
Uni is my favorite! I typically eat my sea urchin straight up, sometimes with a little dash of soy sauce, and maybe some lemon. But the nutty and sweet flavor would probably go very well with quality olive oil. MUST.TRY.THIS.
half the fun of eating meat is cutting it open.
uni over rice that's been mixed with half a splash of soysauce, raw egg and shichimi…
uni wrapped in a sesame leaf
uni over the crust that's left by the rice cooker after it's on for too long..all the better when the rice was cooked in a stone bowl
effing drool
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM UNNIIIII. You seriously have me craving to go to a beach and get fresh raw uni by the pound.
This looks divine. I love the hollowed out urchin shell. You usually don't get to see much of the urchin in restaurants so this is truly fascinating. The last time I had urchin, it was actually 'urchin jelly' in form of an appetizer. It's a shame stuff like that is so hard to find in Europe.
love the way you presented this! ive never tried it with lemon but im so keen now. I put cayenne pepper on sea urchin once. it was lovely but everyone thought i was a douche
so beautiful and intriguing.
I try to be open minded about food, but I'd yelp if someone put this on a plate in front of me. I simply would not believe it's edible! I trust your opinion, but it's so scary. SO fascinating, though. I'd expect to see this in a Star Wars movie. Thanks for sharing this!
wow u people are nuts, first of all its the urchins sex glands that u eat, and second of all they look like your tongue, hold it up to your tongue in the mirror and u wouldnt know which one to chomp, im sorry but this one grossed me out, i cant do raw sea creatures, ill stick to my carrots and salad.
I love the simplicity of sea urchin, olive oil, lemon, and sea salt! I shop at Grace's Marketplace, where they have monkfish liver pate (ankimo) labeled as "Foie Gras of the Sea"!
i enjoy doing dishes. its therapeutic. even my close friend felt the same way.
anyway, i like the post a lot!
keep it up.
I had my first experience with raw sea urchin this past week, and I have to say at the time I thought it was one of the most awful things that I have ever put into my mouth, and I consider myself a somewhat adventurous eater. It might not have been prepared well, but to me it tasted like a mass of grainy, rotting fish mush.
I would, however, be glad to give it a second chance.
I love the fact that you find the beauty in all of natures patterns and designs, it’s really inspirational, especially the ocean/sea creature posts you do. I appreciate the painstaking detail that you put into each of these posts, it really truly is amazing. This is real art, real design, real passion. I love what you do, it’s amazingly elegant. I also love the futuristic/simplistic beauty of your packaging and work space. It’s very clean and geometrical, a science of sorts. I absolutely adore it. You really are a creative genius.
You are my intake, I possess few blogs and rarely run out from brand
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