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Sea Urchin Quotes

Browse 4 quotes about Sea Urchin.

Sea Urchin Quotes

“Seafood is also something we cannot do without as a country surrounded by sea. And the rich variety of seafood is often used in rice balls. The first one is a classic rice ball, with salted salmon. It's slightly different since the grilled salted salmon is broken down into flakes... ... and mixed into the rice together with chopped green onion... ...then made into a rice ball and wrapped in roasted dried seaweed." "Ah, the salmon has been mixed nicely into the rice, so it has a very rich taste." "And the flavor of the green onion gets rid of the fishy scent of the salmon, making the rice ball taste even better." "This will be great to have in a lunch box." "The next rice ball is coated with shredded dried seaweed just like the last one, but the filling is different. It's sea urchin, but it's not raw sea urchin or the typical bottled sea urchin. It's sea urchin shiokara." "Sea urchin shiokara?" "Most of the typical bottled sea urchins have been steeped in alcohol. It's probably because they're easier to make and easier to eat. But in the old days, sea urchin was often made into shiokara. If you salt the sea urchin and let it age and ferment, it becomes far richer tasting compared to a raw sea urchin or the alcohol-macerated sea urchin. Nowadays, that sea urchin shiokara has become very rare, and many people don't even know what it tastes like. So I've decided to use it as a filling for the rice ball." "Ooh, it has such a rich taste." "By being fermented, the sea urchin has developed a completely different flavor along with the original flavor it had.”

SeafoodSalmonSeaweedJapanese FoodRice BallsFermentedSea Urchin
Book:The Joy of Rice
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“The clearest signs of Hakodate's current greatness, though, can be found clustered around its central train station, in the morning market, where blocks and blocks of pristine seafood explode onto the sidewalks like an edible aquarium, showcasing the might of the Japanese fishing industry. Hokkaido is ground zero for the world's high-end sushi culture. The cold waters off the island have long been home to Japan's A-list of seafood: hairy crab, salmon, scallops, squid, and, of course, uni. The word "Hokkaido" attached to any of these creatures commands a premium at market, one that the finest sushi chefs around the world are all too happy to pay. Most of the Hokkaido haul is shipped off to the Tsukiji market in Tokyo, where it's auctioned and scattered piece by piece around Japan and the big cities of the world. But the island keeps a small portion of the good stuff for itself, most of which seems to be concentrated in a two-hundred-meter stretch in Hakodate. Everything here glistens with that sparkly sea essence, and nearly everything is meant to be consumed in the moment. Live sea urchins, piled high in hillocks of purple spikes, are split with scissors and scraped out raw with chopsticks. Scallops are blowtorched in their shells until their edges char and their sweet liquor concentrates. Somewhere, surely, a young fishmonger will spoon salmon roe directly into your mouth for the right price.”

FinestSeafoodMarketHokkaidoSea Urchin
Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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