black lip abalone step by step preperation, Tasmania

 Tasmania's Black lip Abalone

Preparation and cooking

Abalone a Tasmanian dish with a lot of thought behind it and a little asian twist.

We bought 2 fresh black lip Abalone from Ralf's seafood in Electrona, ca. 20km south of Hobart. Ralf's packed them well so we could take them home and prepare them, most people in Tasmania beat thinly sliced Abalone with a meat mallet and fry it quickly on the Barbecue, I tried it when I was younger, but it never was a gastronomic experience.

I wanted to do something different.

Buying Abalone in Tasmania wasn't as easy as I expected as 99% of the local catch is exported to Asia the two I bought came direct from the exporter.

Choose fresh living "fish" 

Pinch the abalone and familiarise yourself with the shell and gut

Trim around the shell, locate the foot which holds the meat and shell together.

The shell and removed abalone, trim away the gut, rinse and dry the abalone. 

Using a sharp knife trim carefully the outer skin from the abalone.
My thoughts were that the skin would form a tough rind around the edges of the cooked abalone, I wanted to avoid this so hence the trimming, remember that abalone are expensive and trimming should be done with care.

The trimmed abalone.

I marinated the abalone with some herbs an spices, garlic, ginger, pepper and some sliced green
Tasmanian apple and local olive oil among other things, I marinated the abalone sealed in a vacuum bag for 24 hours in the fridge.
Then using my mums old fowler preserving thermometer I poached the abalone at 80 degrees for 7 hours.

When the abalone was cold i I sliced it thinly.
I made a sauce on the side with shiitake bouillon and the cooking juices from the vacuum bags.   

I served the abalone with a salad of local samphire I found growing on the wharf at Stanley, apple, grapefruit, baby cucumber and the poached shiitake. the dish was a little crossover Tasmanian/Asian, I like to think of it as a thinking chefs dish, fantastic tender and tasty, alas the clarity of focus of the picture was clouded by to much of Tasmania's great sauvignon blanc.