Creamed Paua a la Gualala

Creamed Paua a la Gualala 

Background
Last year my moribund little Facebook Abalone Page was discovered by the NZ and Tasmania Maori community. As I said then:

"I have this little FB page that I set up 2-3 years ago to post occasional pictures, videos and links about a favorite hobby - abalone diving. It's really just for the benefit of my dive buddies, friends and family. I've always had about 30-40 "likes", picking up another every now and then... Last week this happened. The page goes from 44 likes to 1,700 likes and from 6 impressions to 50,000 in one week thanks to an influx of visitors from down under! Not sure what to make of this. But now I am feeling like I need to entertain you all in some way. I won't be diving again for a couple of weeks. Maybe I'll post some recipes or something."

The common thread - we love picking and eating paua (aka abalone). Especially eating. Among the comments left by my new FB friends, I found many references to Creamed Paua as a favorite dish. Here's a sample suggestion from one visitor:

"Creamed paua (black foot abalone) picked from Ruapuke New Zealand cooked two ways. Savoury - fried with onions add full cream and flour and water to thicken. Sweet (my favorite) same recipe as savoury adding in a can of pineapple chunks. How do you eat yours?" - Rine Riney Meany

This was a new discovery. I'm always looking for new preparations for my favorite sea slug, and determined to give it a try.

Last weekend my brother and I picked our limit from a cove near Gualala, California:

 

 No time like the present to try out a new recipe.

Recipe
First step, clean up the catch. After popping from the shells, the abs are sliced into larger steaks and smaller pieces trimmed for sashimi and ceviche'.

In the past, we discarded the trimmed pieces of black lip and darker meat around the foot. There is nothing wrong with that meat. it's just less aesthetically pleasing than the sliced and trimmed white meat steaks. I always thought throwing those scraps away to be wasteful, but didn't know what to do with them.  This time they're going into the creamed paua.

Next, research a range of recipe sources for this dish. We checked out Puna's Nannys, Cooks Classic, Nik's Kitchen, Uncle Jay, and, of course, our FB commenters.

Let's roll.

Basic ingredients are butter, onion, garlic, milk, salt, pepper, corn starch or flour for thickening and, of course, paua. I'm adding ginger, coconut milk, dry sherry, and fresh cilantro. Just because.

Every recipe starts with onions sauteed in butter. I added minced garlic and ginger. Ignore that lemon. I didn't use it. 

Some recipes say to caramelize the onions. Some not. I decided "not" and added dry sherry to keep the the onions white and soft.

These paua trimmings and scraps were likely to be tough. Some of the recipes recommended "mincing" the paua. I don't have a mincer but do have a food processor, so in it went...

I ground the paua at a somewhat coarse texture.

Then into the sauteed onions and butter...

Sauteed the paua with onions garlic and sherry for a while...

At this stage, some recipes call for adding milk, some for cream, some for coconut milk. I opted for all three:

While reducing the creamed paua mix over low heat (about an hour), I prepared a pot of white rice. The traditional creamed paua presentation is served with fried bread, but I didn't feel like adding any additional experiments so just went with the rice.

As the cream reduced, I added a little flour to thicken the gravy, but not sure it was needed. The sauce had already reduced nicely. As a last step, I added some chopped fresh cilantro for color and a note of flavor.

Review
Served over a bed of rice, accompanied by a side of abalone ceviche' and nice California chardonnay.

The picture really does not do this dish justice. I probably made enough for 2 to 3 servings, but ate it all myself in one sitting (my wife wasn't interested - her loss). It was really f*****g great.  Make no mistake. It's rich. With butter, cream, and abalone, what's not to like? Just don't forget to take your Lipitor for dessert.

Fresh abalone has a subtle flavor. I was afraid it might be overwhelmed by the coconut milk and cream, but the flavors balanced nicely. In some ways the abalone flavor comes through better than the traditional NorCal breaded and fried steaks.  The coconut and cilantro introduced a hint of sweetness and a Thai-like flavor to the dish that I really enjoyed. I resisted adding any hot chili sauce or peppers but the dish could probably stand up to them if administered with a light hand.

This is Tasmanian / Maori comfort food - filling, satisfying, delicious. To my taste, the texture and presentation invoked a Southern US staple - Biscuits & Gravy.  In fact, if served with traditional fried bread instead of rice, the comparison is even more apt. The flavor is distinctly different of course, but, like Biscuits & Gravy, I could see how growing up on Creamed Paua you would crave eating it your whole life.

Hey...  I had it for the first time a couple days ago and I am craving it again right now.

MW Log May 11 - Touring Faial Island with Serafim

Touring the volcanic island with our taxi / guide Serafim.

This is Serafim.  Bob recommended that we find him after he took Bob to the airport. It was a good call.  If you find yourself on Faial Island in the Azores, you cannot do better than tracking down Serafim in Taxi #3 for a tour of the Island he loves.

He is quite an interesting guy in his own right. He lived in the United States in Lowell, Mass. and San Jose. Ca. where he played soccer professionally (at the time, this meant playing for little more than room and board)  and fished for a living.

His parents came to the US as part of  a  special JFK sponsored immigration policy that opened our borders for Azoreans left homeless after a 1957 eruption decimated the North side of the island.

It is unsettling that one of the people in this picture is older that giant mass of land behind them

 Serafim followed shortly thereafter after fulfilling his mandatory military obligation.  Having retired back to the island of his birth, he seemingly knows everyone living in Faial and they all know Serafim.One of our first stops was at a scenic cove where we watched divers and pickers hunting for octopus and limpet clams.

 I was curious about their preparation and Serafim found a local on the shore to offer up a few samples. 

Neither Kim or Jim were interested in eating them raw, so Serafim and I happily slurped them down. To me they look and taste like baby abalone. Later we enjoyed  another preparation - cooked in butter and garlic, along with other local delicacies (new and aged cheese, fresh fish, linguica sausage, potatoes and yams) at Cafe' Rumar a small roadside restaurant we never would have found on our own. The food was extraordinary.

Jim asked Serafim if the cheese was produced locally on the islands. Serafim looked him in the eye and with an authoritative tone offered up the Quote of the Day:

"This cheese is from his cow."

We struggle to capture on film any semblance of  the vistas we are enjoying on a tour like this. Panorama shots are about as close as we will come. More pics from a great day (click to biggify):

 North coast whaling "harbor" - then and now.

MW Recommended: The Serafim Tour of Faial

Serafim's card and home (note the Portuguese, American, and California flags)


Sent from my Sprint HTC smartphone and subsequently edited with more pics.

Thali - North Indian Restaurant in Chelsea

They say the best Indian food in the world is to be found in London and not India. This is our first opportunity since our India tour of 2009 to test that proposition.  As noted in the last post, my now wifi-limited droid found several Indian restaurants in easy walking distance of the hotel.  We decided to forgo the adjoining Bombay Brasserie, which Zagat identified as "overpriced" to stroll a few blocks to a concentration of three Indian restaurants on Old Brompton Road: Star of India, Noor Jahan, and Thali. Of the four, three have been around for decades and have been extensively reviewed on Zagat and elsewhere. Thali Retaurant is relatively new and sparsely reviewed. So that's where we went:

Prawn Balolo

Lamb Gojen Josh

Non Vegetarian Thali

With flavored rice and Kingfisher beer

 Net net. We dined early and were the only ones in the restaurant for most of the dinner. Service was excellent, proprietor was pleasant, food was great.  I wouldn't say it exceeded anything we had in India - we had some pretty great meals in India - but everything was excellent. Thali  definitely earned the MW RECOMMENDED stamp of approval.

I suspect that when you start taking pictures of your food in a lightly trafficked restaurant on a competitive corner, you get more attention than you might otherwise. In particular, we loved the Palak Chat, which we did not order....

Palak Chat

... as they it served to us gratis. It's a signature house appetizer that our server claimed to be unique to Thali. Spinach and other fresh greens are marinated for a day and lightly crisped. I can't really describe it adequately, but it was fantastic and not to be missed. 

 

Note: Writing this from memory, so not sure I got the spelling on all of these dishes correct.

A taste of Chi-Town in Ess Eff

A nice write-up in the Chron today for The Grill on Bryant @ 6th. They are featuring Chicago style hot dogs and Italian Beef. Sigrid and I have been regular patrons of Moishe's Pippic to get our Chicago dog fix but, as far as I know, The Grill has the only Italian Beef west of the Mississippi. Swung by to check it out and bring home a dog and beef.

The Verdict: It is not Gold Coast Dogs or Mister Beef, but... definitely the real deal and probably as close as one could expect on the left coast. They got it right. except...

One complaint - A major faux pas on the bread. The hot dog was not served on a poppy seed bun. C'mon guys. It is not a Chicago hot dog if it is not on a poppy seed bun. You know that. I'll still give Moishe's the slim edge on their dog based on their fidelity to the poppy seed bun, but must admit I liked the foot long char dogs at The Grill, a la Gold Coast Dogs in Chicago. Now if they could just get the bun right.

The Grill, S.F.: Hot dogs with Chicago flavor
Sarah Fritsche Thursday, August 25, 2011

Open just nine months, the Grill offers up delicious, hefty burgers as well as hot dogs and sandwiches.

Restaurant newcomer Mary Ann Lane tends front-of-house, while son-in-law Greg Smith mans the kitchen.

Smith, a Johnson & Wales culinary grad, grinds his own chuck for juicy, cooked-to-order burgers, like the Works ($10.95), topped with bacon, Monterey Jack cheese, avocado, sauteed mushrooms and fried onions. Fries ($3.50) are hand cut and perfectly crisp, and the buttermilk batter for the onion rings ($3.50) is made fresh daily. Smith, an avid Cubs fan, offers a taste of Chicago with the World Famous ($7.95), his version of an Italian beef, a hoagie roll bursting with paper-thin slices of beef, spicy or mild peppers (or both) and dripping with au jus. There's also the Traditional Chicago Dog ($4.95), a Vienna Beef hot dog, topped with neon green relish, Dusseldorf mustard, onions, tomato, pickle spear, sport peppers and celery salt. If you're feeling ravenous, indulge in the foot-long version ($6.95).

The Grill: 799 Bryant St., S.F. (415) 543-4745. 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Delivery available 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. ($15 minimum).

The Grill - MW Recommended.