Shark fin / abalone / recipes

[ozchick]

Well 3 years in Sg and I'm still none the wiser as to what to do with all these Asian things I see on the supermarket shelves. But enjoying seafood flavours as I do, what does one do with packets of frozen shark-fin and tins of abalone? I see this stuff everywhere. I'm not into watery soups though if that's what they're used for. The packet of sharkfin said to use it for porridge( no way Jose) or soups........
BTW My adapted recipe for Mango icecream. Last year the condo tree lost heaps of these so we cut them, pureed and froze.
OK so take a good cup and a half of mango puree and blend with a can of low fat condensed milk and a small carton/can of low-fat coconut milk and freeze. Simple and refreshing dessert that you don't have to prepare at the last minute.

[missis]

Please avoid buying shark's fin. The method of collecting the fins is barbaric (fins are lopped off and the shark thrown back still alive) and numbers are getting depleted.
But thank you for the mango recipe, sounds yum

[road.not.taken]

Shark's Fin ?!?! Are you kidding me ????

[raden888]

I agree with Missis. Given up eating shark's fin!

[JR8]

I agree with Missis. Given up eating shark's fin!

Agreed. It is a brutal trade, cutting animals up whilst still alive and then throwing them back into the sea to die.

Also note it has no taste and zero nutritional value, it is indigestible collagen. You might as well eat bird's nest which is swallow's spit... oh yum!

Since you sound like a keen cook, why not focus on the great fresh fish you get here?

[ozchick]

OMG! Glad I haven't bought any then. Now that it's mentioned I do recall seeing something on the box about this. Do the locals not know about this then either?
Don't worry, enjoying the fresh fish here. But what about abalone, Is that bad too? Just want to get a handle on the common things I see on the shelves here.......

[sundaymorningstaple]

Aside from Abalone being ridiculously overpriced, I've been told, because it sounds like something good or prosperous in one Chinese dialect or another, is much like Freshwater catfish in as much as it has the ability to absorb almost any types of season/spices you cook it in. Without any spices added it is almost tasteless and resembled white rubber much like sotong with about the same consistency. When I used to be an avid freediver in northern California back in the Mid '70's we used to go ab diving off the coast of Marin County north of San Fransisco for the big Red Abs. We would cook 'em over a open fire and eat 'em on buns like hamburgers for free. I'd never actually go out and buy a can of 'em here for what? $50-150 per can? Nah! You can have 'em.

[carteki]

Here's the list to the sustainable seafood: http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521

[JR8]

OMG! Glad I haven't bought any then. Now that it's mentioned I do recall seeing something on the box about this. Do the locals not know about this then either?
Don't worry, enjoying the fresh fish here. But what about abalone, Is that bad too? Just want to get a handle on the common things I see on the shelves here.......

Do the locals know? Hmmm... on the Angry Board one might ask if many of them would care even if they did. Of course, we're all to polite to do that here

It does rather surprise me how what must have once been last-gasp peasant food, seem to often be elevated to luxurious haut cuisine. I appreciate that as peasants you would not throw anything out (even as recently (;)) as my childhood, they'd say of the French that they'd eat everything but the pig's squeek). And so similarly you have shark's fin, chicken feet, bird's nest, fish maw (fish swim bladders), sea cucumber, geoduck* etc...

Aside from Abalone being ridiculously overpriced, I've been told, because it sounds like something good or prosperous in one Chinese dialect or another, is much like Freshwater catfish in as much as it has the ability to absorb almost any types of season/spices you cook it in. Without any spices added it is almost tasteless and resembled white rubber much like sotong with about the same consistency. When I used to be an avid freediver in northern California back in the Mid '70's we used to go ab diving off the coast of Marin County north of San Fransisco for the big Red Abs. We would cook 'em over a open fire and eat 'em on buns like hamburgers for free. I'd never actually go out and buy a can of 'em here for what? $50-150 per can? Nah! You can have 'em.

Agree with you re: abalone, I also consider it to be tasteless and very rubbery, like overcooked squid. Again this is a Chinese delicacy and you try and just think why on earth are they venerating and paying top-$ for this stuff? I believe abalone are expensive as they are not farmed, and have to be hand picked. Most here seem to come from NZ and the waters where they harvest them can be a bit hairy (apparently)...

Abalone-burgers now that's cool; nothing like a beach-bbq, and nothing tastes as good as a fish (etc) you caught yourself Going shark-spotting tomorrow for a few days... 1st trip of the season, Tioman here we come...


* http://steeez.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... 200022.jpg
Yep! (Sorry SMS if propels you into a paroxysm )
Mmmmm another fine local delicacy!

[missis]

ALong the lines of JR8's post, heard somewhere that lobster used to be served to convicts in the US as it wasn't highly regarded...

[sundaymorningstaple]

The first time I had a geoduck had to be back in the late '60's, maybe Nov-Dec of 68, sometime after returning from the Nam in June 68. No real difference than the East Coast softshell clams commonly referred to as manninose where I'm from on the Chesapeake Bay. Except for the huge size difference that is.

[JR8]

I saw a few in a tank here recently... either CS at Tanglin or that place on the top floor of Ion ('360'?).

As with sea cucumbers... no way Jose!

[sundaymorningstaple]

Have you ever grabbed a live one off the bottom of the ocean and had them cover you hands/gloves in the slimy stick white threads they shoot out one end? What a nasty mess! Put me off eating one right then and there! Never figured which end is the front though! They're all over the Riau Islands across the harbour (Pl Galang - 3rd Island over - Batam, Bintan & Galang) Worked there in the Vietnamese refugee camp for 3 years (88-91) and did a lot of snorkeling on the weekends while there.

[JR8]

Have you ever grabbed a live one off the bottom of the ocean and had them cover you hands/gloves in the slimy stick white threads they shoot out one end? What a nasty mess! Put me off eating one right then and there! Never figured which end is the front though! They're all over the Riau Islands across the harbour (Pl Galang - 3rd Island over - Batam, Bintan & Galang) Worked there in the Vietnamese refugee camp for 3 years (88-91) and did a lot of snorkeling on the weekends while there.

No... but I saw a guide in Egypt pick one up during a dive, and rub it up and down as if mastubating, on which it then shot out the splurge of spaghetti/junk stuff. You will understand that after witnessing that there's no way in hell I'm eating those things!

They seem very international, Egypt, Thailand, Malaysia, thousands of the flipping things. Funny I've never seen them in UK waters though.

p.s. Vn refugee camp, that must have been far out. I have a friend who was a nurse at a Red Cross camp just over the border from Cambodia (back in the day). I think those kinda things permanently change you...

[sundaymorningstaple]

p.s. Vn refugee camp, that must have been far out. I have a friend who was a nurse at a Red Cross camp just over the border from Cambodia (back in the day). I think those kinda things permanently change you...

For me it was twofold. A penance for my 18 months in the NAM, and a needed job at that particular time (during my transition from Offshore Oil to land based Human Resources). I've spend time in the refugee camps in P. Bidong in M'sia, Thailand, Palawan, and Indonesia and yes, it does change a person. Especially from the perspective of one who helped create the mess in the first place by being where we should never have been.