[upbeat music]
[mouth slurping]
[clanking]
- I'm Mike Cruz, manager of
Greenpoint Fish Wholesale
and I'm here to show you
how to prep every shellfish.
[swooshing]
When I prepare shellfish,
I like to have three knives with me
a large, heavy back chef's knife,
a smaller, curved stiff
knife for trimming,
as well as a thin, flexible knife
that's great for getting around shells
and other intricate places.
It actually has a really nice feature
where it extends.
Lobster and crab pickers,
an oyster knife which can get
into the hinge really well,
a clam knife, shrimp deveiner,
a shellfish scissor,
which is great for cutting
through lobster tails
without damaging any of the flesh.
I have an offset spatula
and for special circumstances
we're gonna use a blacklight.
[techno music]
[dramatic drum beat] Blue crab.
[ta da trumpet]
So this is a blue crab,
definitely native to East Coast waters.
First things first, we're
gonna steam this crab
roughly six minutes, it'll turn bright red
and it'll be ready to
pick out all the meat.
[dramatic drum beat]
We'll pick the crab up,
starting with its front claws,
we'll just pinch straight from where
it connects to the body, down and out.
Same with the other side, down and out
and we'll do the same for all the legs,
and the back swimmers here.
So now we're left with just the body.
We'll flip the crab upside down
and lift up the apron here,
and this will just snap right off,
exposing a opening there
where we'll get our thumbs in
and just peel off that top shell.
Now here we have some gills,
some other organs,
and we're just going to remove those.
This is the faceplate which
we'll also just peel right off.
Clean out any excess organs
from the center cavity
and we're just gonna
crack this right in half.
Going to peel back these
little layers of cartilage
that hold the meat in.
And using now our little picking tool
to just very gently start pulling out
that really delicate, sweet crab meat.
The meat will be covered
with a super thin membrane,
just really peels right off.
And you essentially just
wanna get you skewer into
any little crevasse that you find,
and pulling straight out and getting out
every little last bit of meat.
That's your body,
now with the claws,
separate out the pinchers,
the legs, tiny little knuckles.
We're just gonna come in
on the most rounded part
and just start nipping away.
Crack that shell open
and pry that claw meat right out of there,
also the leg.
There really isn't much meat
in these little back legs here,
the best thing I would do with these
is just suck them dry.
It's really delicious.
That's pretty much how you
break down a blue crab.
[dramatic drum beat] Soft-shell crab.
[ta da trumpet]
This is a blue crab that has molted,
so basically they're changing shells
and during this phase,
their shells are soft.
You can actually eat
the whole crab this way,
shell and all.
Currently they are out of season,
so right now we have a
frozen soft-shell crab.
The head of the crab is here,
and that has a bunch of organs in it
that we won't be eating today.
Your first step is
going to be just to snip
right behind the eyes there,
discard that section.
After that, we'll flip the crab over,
we'll remove this apron section here,
and lift up, actually, the top shell
and expose the gills here,
and we'll just trim those off.
Same thing to the other side.
So, this is a completely dressed,
ready to eat, soft-shell crab.
This thing deep fried,
in a sandwich, perfect.
[dramatic drum beat] Dungeness crab.
[ta da trumpet]
These are a West Coast species of crab,
really really sweet, really
delicious, really tender meat.
When purchasing all live shell fish,
you wanna make sure that they're alive.
Look at their eyes, make sure
that they're convex and round,
not concave and sunken in.
People will tend to steam them, mostly,
you wanna aim for 10 minutes per pound
and you can add on about five
minutes per pound after that.
[dramatic drum beat]
So this is a cooked dungeness crab,
we're gonna pick the crab up
and we'll start by just
breaking claws off.
From the joint down here,
we're just gonna pull down and twist out.
And we'll do that for all of these.
You wanna really make
sure you're at the joint
when you do this.
Now that the legs are removed,
we're gonna start and
just focus in on the head.
Flip it over, and we're going to remove
what is called the apron of the crab.
This just pulls right out really easily.
And now that leaves you with a cavity,
put your thumbs in like that,
and just pull back the head.
This is what's called
the mustard of the crab,
and this is really delicious,
so do not throw it out
and just hold it off to the side for now.
So now we're just gonna focus in on
the meat that is in
the actual body itself.
So we'll be taking off these gills here,
which you do not wanna eat.
Any extra pieces that are
kinda getting in your way
with your hands for now.
This is the mouth organs, we'll
just snap those off easily.
Now, crack this crab in half,
which you can do with your hands.
You'll just turn it away from you
and just pull apart.
One more time, so essentially
you're cracking this into quarters.
Once you have it broken
down into quarters,
you'll start to see,
there are little cavities
that all contain the meat.
With your skewer, go in there
and just scoop around the cavities.
So they have sections of
what almost look like really thin plastic
that separates all that meat.
This easily can get into the meat itself
so you wanna be careful
when you're doing this
to kind of make sure
that you're only getting
the meat out of the crab.
We're gonna move onto the legs.
We're just gonna take them out,
this first little digit here
we can just remove and toss
and then we'll just break
it down on the joints,
I'll snap one way until it's free,
and then coming out the other way.
And ideally, this will take out
any pieces of cartilage with it.
If you have a pair of
shellfish scissors here,
they're curved to avoid any meat.
So you can just come straight in
and just cut that.
And you can crack the shell right open
and pull out some really
beautiful, full pieces of crab leg.
And we'll use our skewer
just to scoop it out.
So that's a leg, now we'll do a claw.
Again, putting pressure on
the opposite way of the joint,
remove this section
first, then the knuckle,
and then the actual claw on the hinge.
Just pop it once until
it breaks on that side,
bring it back the other way,
and you should be pulling out
that entire cartilage piece there
that's right in the middle
of all the meat in your claw.
Take the scissors and
we're just gonna cut,
go through the knuckle, to the claw.
Keep going on these, really beautiful,
full piece of leg.
And that's how you pick crab legs.
A great way to find any
extra pieces of shell
that maybe stuck in your
crab meat is a blacklight.
[techno music]
I think that was everything.
[dramatic drum beat] Maine Lobster
[ta da trumpet]
You always wanna have a live product,
with lobster specifically
and most shellfish generally,
you never wanna be eating a lobster
that's been dead for more than 24 hours.
The meat within their
bodies decays very quickly,
so essentially having a
live lobster in front of you
tells you I know this is safe,
I know this is fresh, I know
this gonna be delicious.
Before you cook it, you're
going to want to kill it
in the most humane way possible.
Put your knife in at the base of the head
where the body meets, press straight down
and just crack down.
There may be some residual movement
but that's just the nervous system firing.
You can continue your cut if you wanted
straight down the middle
if you were looking to grill the tails
but either way, your lobster
is now ready to be prepped.
Take off these bands, which
are just there to protect you
from getting pinched.
Pick the lobster up by the
body, hold it pretty firmly,
and you're gonna wanna get the tail
pretty much where the
joint meets the body.
Twist one way, twist another
way just to loosen it up,
and then go a full rotation with it
while pulling out, so there
you'll have your lobster tail.
You'll come around to the
front side of the lobster
and grabbing the claw
from where it connects to the body,
pinch right there and
just twist and pull out.
Same thing to the other side
and then these small legs
separate out, one by one.
So here you'll have your tail,
your pincher, your crusher, and your legs.
We'll take the claws, and again,
where that joint meets here,
you're just gonna wanna use your thumbs
to just kinda crack and open.
Like there and then you have a knuckle,
which will just twist right off.
Same thing to the pincher claw.
So there you have a
lobster fully broken down
and ready to cook.
[dramatic drum beat] Cooked Maine lobster.
[ta da trumpet]
So here I have a cooked lobster
and I'm gonna show you to
take all of the meat out.
So starting with the arms,
we'll just pinch from the
joints, down and twist.
Twist out and going to the back tail,
give it a twist one way
and finish it out the other way.
And then for the legs, snap them off.
To get the tail meat
out in the easiest way,
these back fins here, they
kinda of peal right off
by just snapping them back.
And you'll see already the tail meat
is starting to expose itself.
Holding the lobster tail
between your fingers,
in both hands, give it a squeeze one time.
And then you'll turn it away from you
and pull outwards.
This should free up the entire tail,
leaving nothing inside.
Moving on to the crusher claw,
pull this claw down on its joint away.
As soon as you hear that crack,
pull up on the other side
to free up the bottom half
and just give it like a
little twist as it comes out
and you should leave the claw meat
still attached to the claw.
From here we can separate out the knuckle
and then again from the leg joint.
With the crusher claw,
use a heavy back knife
and just give it a snack
right on the fattest part there,
same thing on the other side.
Once you have those two sides cracked,
you can pretty much take
your hand and crush it.
Careful not to destroy
the meat on the inside,
wiggle that claw right out.
The same thing to the pincher,
pull it straight out.
For the knuckle meat,
you can use a specialized tool like this,
specifically made for
scooping out lobster meat.
Go in through one of the openings,
run the tip of it along
the edge of the shell
trying to stay as tight as possible
and not break into any of the meat.
You come in from the other side
and you can just push and shimmy
that knuckle meat right out.
For the remaining parts of the leg,
stick a skewer, the end of a spoon,
something thin and nonflexible in
to this first joint here
and you can kinda pop it right out.
And that meat comes right
out, just like that.
An often underutilized part of the lobster
is actually their legs,
people think that there's
little to no meat in them
and they don't see it was a
worthwhile project to take on.
It's actually really easy and pretty fun.
[bell dinging]
You have a rolling pin,
you lay these out flat on a cutting board
and kind of like toothpaste,
you can just squeeze that meat out.
The meat just squeezes right out.
So this is a lobster fully picked,
your crusher, your pincher, your knuckles,
your leg meats, and then
your remainder leg meat,
and your tail.
[dramatic drum beat] Crawfish.
[ta da trumpet]
This is a live crawfish,
they're actually capable of traversing
small distances of land,
whenever I get these in in my job,
you'll find them in the office,
you'll find them in the locker room,
you'll find them in the bathroom.
When you least expect it
you look down and there's just
a crawfish waiting for you.
So, and they're really fun
and easy to make and eat.
So if you're doing a crawfish boil,
I would definitely suggest
maybe 10 to 15 minutes
for a big pot of them, just
let them cook with everything
and pull them out once they're bright red.
[dramatic drum beat]
So here we have our cooked crawfish,
they're like mini lobsters.
So what you wanna do is separate
that tail from the body,
hold onto the tail, and
just give it a twist.
This is what you eat on a crawfish
but it's not the only thing
you necessarily enjoy.
You wanna make sure to suck out
all of these delicious head juices.
[mouth sucking]
It's just delicious.
[dinging]
So, for the tail, these
little back fins back here,
peal those off quickly.
Ideally, that will also remove
any sort of intestinal tract,
you can just peal them
right out of their shell,
super fast and easy.
Simple as that.
Delicious.
[dramatic drum beat] Langostino.
[ta da trumpet]
Langostino is actually a catch-all term
for what is a type of squat lobster.
We are going to remove
these back set of fins
off the tail, pull right
back and just twist them off.
The meat from the tail is exposed.
Grabbing it in each of its sections
between two fingers, I'm
just going to squeeze
until I hear a crack,
I'm gonna do that for
each little segment here.
This one actually has some
really gorgeous blue eggs underneath it.
Continue to peal the shell,
basically this thing
will just peal right off
in individual segments, all the way down
and we'll do the same
thing to the other side.
Once that's done, you can flip it over
and just start pealing it back
and just revealing that
really gorgeous flesh.
Snap that bottom membrane
and just very gently peal it.
And you will be left with an
absolutely gorgeous Langostino.
I would just barely poach this thing
or really, ideally, just
serve it raw like this.
[dramatic drum beat]
American white shrimp.
[ta da trumpet]
We have the head on with this guy,
so what we'll do, just grab
the head with one hand,
grab the tail with the other hand
and you're just gonna twist it off.
I have a shrimp deveiner,
flatten the shrimp out in
your hand and extend it.
You're gonna go all along
the top shell of the shrimp
and then come out right before the tail.
And now with our hands we can just go in
and just remove it segment by segment.
You can choose to leave the tail fins on
or you just peal them right off.
Now what you're gonna do is run you knife
just along the top of the shrimp,
gently exposing where the
intestinal tract will be,
making sure there's nothing here
and there you will have a
pealed and deveined shrimp.
[dramatic drum beat] Prawn.
[ta da trumpet]
Prawns and shrimp, very similar.
Prawns have an extra set of
pinchers right up in the front,
we're going to peal, devein,
and today we're gonna
take it one step further
and I'm gonna show you how to
butterfly the prawn as well.
First things first, we are
going to remove the head
by holding onto the head
and the tail separately,
and just twisting off.
For the prawn tail, we're
gonna use our deveiner,
and we're gonna go in straight
at the top of the shell
and just follow all the way down.
Then with our hands,
we're just gonna come back
and peal everything off.
And we'll use our tool to open up the tail
and just remove that as well.
Now, you'll see intestinal tract,
some other organs in here,
and we're just gonna use our hands to just
make sure we get all of those out.
And now that we have it cleaned up,
take the sharp part of
our shrimp knife here
and right where that intestinal tract was,
we're just gonna follow that line,
being careful not to
cut all the way through
the underside of the prawn.
Now once you have it opened up,
you can cut a little bit on one side,
a little bit on the other side,
just very shallow cuts here
until the prawn lays flat.
And that's how you butterfly a prawn.
Butterflying is particularly
great for even, quick cooking
but these certainly lend themselves well
to being grilled shell on,
you can broil them, bake
them, boil the, steam them.
It's just a great product to work with.
[dramatic drum beat] Sea scallop.
[ta da trumpet]
Live sea scallops are bivalves,
which essentially means
they have two shells,
a top shell and a bottom shell
which are joined right
at the end with a hinge.
Locate the top shell,
which is always going to be more rounded
and the bottom shell will
always be a little more flat.
Enter the scallop in from the
back shell, not the top shell.
I like to stand my
scallop up on the hinge,
locate where the gap is,
use my knife to really wedge it open
and my fingers to hold it there.
I'll stick my flexy knife
underneath the eyes,
peal them back slightly,
locate the muscle,
and really staying tight to the back shell
and going slow, I'll just
wiggle my knife straight down
until it frees open that muscle.
This lip on the outside is actually
where they have a large number of eyes,
you don't want to be eating any of that.
You're gonna peal back the eyes,
hold on to that membrane
and just pull everything out
so now you're left with the main muscle
attached to the bottom shell.
The muscles always, this is
on one side of the scallop,
slightly more than the other,
so you'll wanna get on that closer side.
Using something flexible
in a swooping motion
press down pretty hard with your knife
and the scallop will slide right out.
And then you have a live sea scallop.
[dramatic drum beat] Duxbury oyster.
[ta da trumpet]
There are lots of different
types of oysters out there,
generally speaking, there's
one way to shuck them.
You have a flat side
and then you have a cup
that holds the meat.
So you're gonna wanna turn the cup
down on your cutting board
and get a good grip on it flat.
And you'll see there's hinge here
with a bit of a gap,
take your shucking knife
and just get it into that gap
to get a little bit deeper,
you're gonna wanna put some
pressure going this way,
towards the front of the oyster
while also wiggling.
But you don't want to be pressing so hard
that if you slip you have a bad accident.
There's no rush with this, you'll feel it
and once the knife is stuck in the oyster
give it another little wiggle,
just to crack the oyster open slightly.
Take the knife out and come
along this side closest to you
with just the tip of your knife,
you're going to be wiggling
and staying very tight to that top shell
until you cut the first
muscle holding here.
You'll do the same
thing on the other side,
you should have a fairly clean oyster.
There's one more muscle down here
that's also holding the meat
onto the bottom half of the
shell, so you'll come in,
careful not to spill too many juices,
and you'll just sort of
free up that one side.
And there you go, a
shucked oyster ready to go.
East Coast oysters are
definitely a favorite
amongst a lot of people,
especially here on the East Coast.
They have a higher salinity to them,
they're more briny, so
that's gonna equal more salt
in the flavor of your oyster.
[dramatic drum beat] Baywater sweets.
[ta da trumpet]
These come from the West
Coast, out of Washington state.
Same as always, the shells on
these can be a little brittle
so you will wanna take extra caution
and their hinges sometimes are covered
by extra pieces of shell
that kind of come up.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle until
you start to feel yourself
about to get in and you just pop.
You're all freed up
and there you have a
shucked West Coast oyster.
I could definitely crush
a dozen of these easily.
[mouth slurping]
Mm.
[dramatic drum beat] European Flat.
[ta da trumpet]
Also sometimes known as Belon oysters.
First step for these
is to remove the band,
so you find the hinge, right
where the two shells connect,
but just don't stop wiggling,
don't stop pressing,
and you'll feel it start
to go slightly in more
until you get that pop.
Get that hinge free.
I'm trying my best to keep the oysters
flat in my palm as possible
just to not leak out all of those juices.
Free up that bottom muscle
and there you have a
European flat shucked oyster.
I don't like these oysters
but I'm gonna taste it.
Yeah, all right. [chuckling]
It's like licking a battery.
[warning buzzer]
[dramatic drum beat]
Prince Edward Island Mussel
[ta da trumpet]
These muscles come from
Prince Edward Island
off the East Coast of Canada.
One important thing, if it's alive,
it should be tightly shut.
Or if it's open a little bit,
pretty much as soon as
you touch it or tap it
or give it a squeeze
or something like that,
it should shut up by itself.
Within the muscle there's
probably going to be
a little bit of sand and grit,
so definitely take at
least a minimum of an hour
to purge your muscles
and give them time to release that sand.
Your next step is essentially going to be
remove the beard of the muscle,
which is what the muscle uses
to attach onto rocks, or if they're farmed
onto the ropes that they hang from.
You'll find it on the
flat end of the muscle,
kind of looks like hairs.
So you're gonna wanna grab onto those,
get a good grip on them as
you wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
Once you have the beard
exposed a little bit more,
you'll pinch it between your two fingers,
really focus on the
wiggling, wiggling, wiggling,
and then it'll just pop right out.
And your muscles are ready to cook.
[dramatic drum beat] Hard-shell clams
[ta da trumpet]
Depending on where you're from,
you're gonna call them
something different.
The little neck, a count
neck, a cocktail clam,
some people will call this
a top neck, a cherry stone.
At the end of the day,
they're all hard-shell clams.
You're absolutely going
to need a clam knife.
One side, the back of
the knife, totally flat.
Super thin blade anda
slightly sharpened edge.
It helps to slip into the clam easily.
I like to check out the lip of the clam,
find the slight gap within it,
set my knife in that hinge,
squeeze and sort of wiggle a little bit
until you find that opening.
It's gonna wanna be pretty tightly closed,
so you're just gonna
pop it open, slightly.
Once you have that gap ready,
you'll come in along the sides,
just scraping the very top of the clam.
Cut one of the muscles that's
holding it on that side
and you'll do the same exact
thing on the other side.
Stay really tight to that top shell
until you feel that pop.
Once you do, you're gonna
scrape that top shell
until it just pops right open.
Separate from one bottom hinge here,
one bottom hinge on this side,
free up that meat, and
you have a shucked clam.
I think they can stand up to oysters.
[dramatic drum beat] Soft-shell clam
[ta da trumpet]
Also known as a steamer clam.
We're just gonna wanna
do a very quick blanch,
basically just a flash
in the water, right out,
and into an ice bath.
You essentially just want the clam
to separate from the shell
and make it really easy to work with.
So after blanching, you'll see
that the clam has opened up.
These clams burrow deep into the ground,
this portion here, the siphon or the neck,
is what actually comes out of the sand
to retrieve water and food.
So we'll start with that facing upwards,
facing the clam towards
you with your clam knife,
you're just gonna rub along the sides
and just make sure that the
clam is completely separated
from the shell itself.
And they just fall right
out after a quick blanch.
You can see an extra membrane
here, peal that right off
of the siphon portion.
You'll see a set of gills right here,
couple of other organs,
we can just peal all of that
away with our clam knife
and for the neck, we can just scrape away
any dark bits on both sides.
You'll want to ensure that there's no
sand or grit stuck in the siphon,
cut it right in half, slightly,
just take a peak inside.
Give it a quick scrape, once
you have all of these cleaned,
the clam is out and trimmed,
this is ready for your
chowder, it's ready for frying,
it's ready to eat.
[dramatic drum beat] Razor clam.
[ta da trumpet]
The meat is very delicate on these razors
so when I prepare razor clams
I like to use a blunt object,
nothing really too sharp.
So I will take a offset spatula,
there's again a top
shell and a bottom shell.
Find the gap, you'll see some meat
being attached to the
membrane on the top shell,
same on the side shell.
Enter in really tight onto that top shell
and just start pealing away the membrane,
making sure you take your
time to get everything off.
Once that side's free, flip it,
and do the same exact
thing to the other side.
And once it's open,
the top shell should just peal right off.
And you scrape out anything that's stuck,
you have the foot, you have the siphon,
and when you flip it you'll see the belly
and the intestinal tract of the clam.
Gonna grab a small knife
and we're just going to trim away
the belly, the foot, just
tougher, more nasty parts
that you don't necessarily wanna eat.
Occasionally, there are grits of sand
within the siphon itself,
straighten it out as best you can
and using a sharp knife, not
cutting all the way through,
just being very gentle
to open up that siphon.
You can see it's pretty clean,
we'll give it a little rinse.
And what I like to do, just
really thin slices of razor.
I think they have like a really beautiful,
sweet flavor to them,
gently pan seared is great
but raw is the way to go.
[dramatic drum beat] Geoduck
[ta da trumpet]
Geoduck are definitely
some of the more unique
looking shellfish that we're
gonna be working with today.
This is a West Coast shellfish,
they're the largest burrowing clam.
Very sought after, well
known in the sushi community.
First steps when looking
to prepare a geoduck,
you're gonna need to purge it.
Basically you're going to
submerge it in saltwater
for at least an hour.
Your next step is going
to be a quick blanch
in some boiling water, 15 seconds,
right into an ice bath.
This will allow the geoduck
to separate from the shell.
Also will allow us to
remove any extra membranes
that might be tough
and make the preparation of
the geoduck more difficult.
So let's blanch it now.
Our geoduck is now blanched,
and we're gonna point the
opening of the shell out to you.
Come in here, and put your knife
right up against that shell
and really just follow that line,
you wanna be very careful to not puncture
the actual meat of the geoduck.
Once that side is free,
you're gonna do the same, exact thing
up on the other side
until everything is freed.
We'll free this little part here.
Okay, this is your
geoduck out of the shell.
There are a few parts here
that we're not going to want to eat.
This siphon has a membrane over it,
so it gets connected down from
all the way at the bottom,
you'll just release some of the extra
and just start to peal it off.
In this rounded area you're gonna have
the stomach and the belly,
so we're gonna remove that.
And you can see it kind of hangs off,
we're just gonna come in and
we go straight down like that
and we'll do the same
thing to the other side.
So this will go, this will
get split pretty much into
these sections here.
We're gonna wanna open this siphon up,
just to ensure that
there's no sand, or grit,
or anything like that in there.
Making sure to make shallow cuts,
just enough to get it open,
I don't wanna cut it directly in half,
once in there we can
see a little bit of sand
and just pour it off.
And we have some extra organs in here
that we're gonna wanna clean up.
So just gently with the tip of your knife,
you're gonna run it just along the edges.
It is hallow right behind it,
so your knife will slip
through if you're not careful.
Same thing to the other side
and we'll just peal this right out,
and we'll trim the edges there.
You'll notice some discoloration
on the siphon itself here
when you're working with the product
from live to finish.
So if we get some salt here
and some water, I'm gonna
actually use that salt
to scrub the outside,
rinse off any excess salt
and you can see already the color
is starting to brighten up no them,
slice it super thin, enjoy it raw.
It's just a clam, don't let
it's appearance deter you
from picking on up if you see them.
[dramatic drum beat] Cockle.
[ta da trumpet]
Cockles have been described
as more complex than hard-shell clams,
they just have an extra level of savory,
an extra level of umami, an
extra level of ocean goodness.
Similar to an oyster, we will go in
where the hinge meets and
we're just gonna wiggle,
just wiggle until you feel
that pop, that's just happened.
You're gonna run the knife
really tightly along the top shell there,
you do it to both sides,
and you're gonna free up
any little bit of meat.
On the bottom there
you'll do the same thing,
cutting the muscle that
connects the cockle,
there you have a shucked cockle.
[dramatic drum beat] Abalone.
[ta da trumpet]
Abalone is a type of sea snail,
it's super well known and sought after
for their really white, firm meat
which can be quite expensive.
And also for their really gorgeous,
mother of pearl shells.
A really beautiful creature.
So, to prepare an abalone,
what I like to do is I'll
take a offset spatula,
blunted object, and you just go in around
the sides of the shell
and start freeing up the meat.
Getting under that
membrane as best as you can
until it is freed up from the shell.
So when you pop the
abalone out of the shell
you'll see just a stunning aray of colors
on the inside of their shell
and you'll see a hot mess of
a shell fish in front of you.
Let me show you how to clean that up now.
The white meat here is what
you're gonna wanna get at,
there are some organs around it,
those all just come right off,
and just by hand, start
pealing off extra stuff here.
I mean, this meat is
just really, really firm,
really beautiful.
We'll give it a quick little rinse
just to get off some of this extra stuff.
So using a small paring knife,
I'm essentially just gonna start trimming
any little extra black parts,
should come off if you just scrape it.
That's a shucked, cleaned,
and trimmed abalone.
[dramatic drum beat] Conch.
[ta da trumpet]
This is a type of sea snail,
the live 20 to 30 years actually,
so they get fairly big as they get older.
They actually grow with their shell.
So first you wanna identify
your crown of spikes,
you'll have one larger one here,
something a little smaller,
and then a tiny one around the spiral.
What you're gonna need to do is
make a hole in the shell
between the second and third.
Well, you wanna just sort of tap slightly,
just breaking away
little pieces at a time.
From here, I'm gonna
use my offset spatula,
something without an edge
and I'm just gonna go
along the top of the shell
and just sort of run the
spatula along that shell,
just to free up the snail from inside.
So just take your time, don't force it,
just going in all different angles.
There we go.
You'll get a grip of that foot
and just start to pull it out.
Down here, this is a hard shell,
you're just going to trim that away.
You just wanna trip away any
sort of dark stuff on there.
You are left with a really
nice, firm piece of shellfish
that lends itself really well
to being sliced very, very thin.
I mean, this is great for sashimi
but I mean, I suggest almost all shellfish
be tried raw at least once.
And that's how you prep a conch.
[dramatic riff]
[dramatic drum beat]
West Coast sea urchin.
[ta da trumpet]
So they're covered in spines,
this is essentially
their defense mechanism,
it's how they move around,
it's how they capture food
that they're gonna get.
They have a set of extremely
delicious roe sacs within them
that most people will know as uni.
You wanna be very careful not
to get pricked by the spines,
handle them gently, flip them over.
That is the urchin's mouth.
I like to use a little
paring knife for this
and we're just gonna go right
around where the mouth is
and just free that up for us
so we can get our scissor in.
It'll be a fair amount of liquid.
And again, I'm not going super deep,
you just wanna be enough
so that it's free.
We'll take a bowl and we're just going to
dump out any liquid that's in there.
And we'll pull the beak out,
we're just gonna dump all that out.
If you look closely,
there are some divisions
within the way that the urchin is set up.
So you wanna take a pair of sheers
and get in kind of in
between one of those sections
and just make a cut.
We can do another one on the other side
and we're just looking to
pretty much meet these two cuts
and just start trimming.
They kinda just peal right off.
You can see already the really beautiful,
bright orange roe that's
starting to expose itself
and just all of this is in the way,
so we're just gonna get rid of that.
Pretty much can just shake it out,
you can use your finger,
like to use a little offset spatula,
and just free anything
up that's getting stuck,
being super mindful of those
really delicate roe sacs
that you don't wanna disturb.
You can really start seeing them now.
Take a slotted spoon where
the roe sac was attached
to that top layer, you'll
come in the tip of your spoon
and pretty much just
start scooping them out.
And they pretty much just
hug the side of the urchin,
so you just wanna follow the same shape
that the urchin has naturally.
Gonna take the roe sacs
and spatula and my spoon
and just gently drop them into the water.
Get in there with your hand,
shake them a little bit,
very gently just to knock off
any of that extra organs
that are on there.
You are ready to enjoy
one of the most delicious
things in the sea,
sea urchin roe.
You can just put it on your hand like so
and just [mouth slurping].
Super delicious.
[dinging]
[dramatic drum beat]
East Coast Sea urchin.
[ta da trumpet]
Looks really different
than the West Coast variety
but the procedure's
still exactly the same.
Turn it around onto its back,
only using the very, very tip of my knife,
and we're just gonna dump
out all of the excess
liquid and sea water and
we'll pull the beak out.
And we're gonna go in straight across,
we'll do the same thing
to the opposite side,
and then we're gonna start
working our way around,
removing the bottom section.
I'm not going too deep, not rushing.
We're gonna dump out, again,
any excess liquid that's in here.
Oh, one guy already fell out.
They wanna come out of the urchin.
You remove any of those extra organs
that are stuck on there.
Submerge this into water
and we'll start retrieving these roe sacs.
From there, really gorgeous,
East Coast sea urchin roe.
Nothing is better than
urchin, honestly. [laughing]
This great.
So, hopefully today I've
taken some of the fear out
of bringing home live shellfish.
Takes a little bit of practice,
don't be afraid to make any mistakes.
Aside from acquiring new skills
for your culinary tool belt,
just really take your time
and appreciate what you
have in front of you
and appreciate everything
that the ocean has to offer.
