What Do You Do with This?
By Dyske April 18th, 2009
I found this in China Town (NYC). I have no idea what this could be. I cannot even tell if this is a vegetable, a sea creature, or a land creature. What the hell is this and what do you do with it? If anyone has anything to pitch in, please leave comments.
Frank Luo says:
April 18th, 2009 at 9:55 pmThese are dried sea cucumbers. They are harvested from the sea, skinned and gutted, and dried, and this is how it’s usually sold, dried.
Once the guts and skin have been removed the remainder is almost pure protein, and especially rich in gelatin content. You would have to rehydrate these in water (some say water spiked with calcium carbonate or sodium carbonate, though I am not sure why) for a number of hours before you can cook them.
Sea cucumbers are usually cooked with richly flavorful adjunct ingredients, for example ham bone stock, which flavors the sea cucumbers readily absorb. So, next time you see sea cucumbers on a menu in a Chinese restaurant, you’ll know that the dish was made from something like these (various species of sea cucumbers are consumed, and they can differ in size, shape, and color).
Dyske says:
April 19th, 2009 at 12:08 amI just did a Google image search for sea cucumber and it looks really scary.
Evan says:
April 19th, 2009 at 10:57 amfor 48 buck a pound it must be something quite special and coveted.
Giant Squid penis?
JiJi says:
April 20th, 2009 at 8:36 pmhttp://www.manabook.jp/notes-yokohama-namako.htm
This site could be helpful. It’s called “Namako.” I like it. I often ate it as kind of sashimi with soy source and rice vinegar.
Dried Namako is called “Irinamako” or “Hoshinamako.” It’s said Japanese Hoshinamako is the best.
Annie says:
April 29th, 2009 at 3:09 amIt can be eaten. In Chinese,it’s called Haishen.海参
Jenni says:
September 14th, 2015 at 5:06 pmWell put, Dan. That makes me feel even better about my first three years of hitnung, and last year, too. I had four successful years in between and…