Tag Archives: sea urchin

April 11, 2011 · 11:13 am

Horon Kushiage Dining

If you’re not familiar with Japanese “kushiage” its bite size breaded and perfectly deep-fried skewers of meat, seafood and vegetables. These small plates and skewers at Horon are made for sharing with your friends while you converse and drink the night away. All the different types of soju and sake will help your apprehensive friends become undaunted eaters (foodies).

Baby octopus, mochi cheese, lotus root with sea urchin and bacon wrapped mushrooms

Bacon wrapped cherry tomatoes and more baby octopus

Whats also great about Horon are all the other none fried dishes you can order like these truffled potatoes with blue cheese

Braised pork cheek

Uni-giri (sea urchin and rice wrapped in seaweed)

And one of my favorites, Wagyu beef liver sashimi (raw thinly sliced beef liver)

Horon Kushiage Dining

2143 182nd St.

Torrance, CA 90504

*If you ever decide to come here please hit me up, I love this place!

 

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December 13, 2010 · 11:01 am

Fresh Pasta with Shrimp & Uni (Sea Urchin) Clam Sauce

If you like to cook you should try to make pasta from scratch at least once. Yeah it takes more time than boiling the store-bought stuff for 8 minutes but if you can enjoy the process, the outcome will always taste so much better.

The great thing about cooking is when you taste a good dish from a restaurant it gives you inspiration to make something similar. There’s been numerous times when we’ve eaten at a restaurant and went straight home to try to make what we just ate. About six months ago I had one of my favorite pasta dishes from the Spoon House called Sea Urchin Spaghetti, ever since that first bite I knew I needed to make the same dish with fresh pasta. Uni (sea urchin) is one of the best edible things to come out of the ocean and in my sushi bar called heaven they would only serve toro, wild salmon and uni.

Since the uni’s flavor is best rare this dish works when everything is cooked separately. First the white clam sauce is made with white wine, cream, Parmesan, garlic, olive oil, clams and clam juice and simmered in a small pot. Then the shrimp is seared in a pan with salt, pepper and butter. Mixed all together with the uni last (no heat) so it doesn’t cook.

Add to fresh pasta and topped with seaweed and sesame seeds.

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June 14, 2010 · 12:20 am

Sea Urchin Spaghetti

Spoon House

1601 W. Redondo Beach Blvd.

Gardena, CA 90247

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October 23, 2009 · 10:15 am

“Savory clean ocean water…”

If you’ve ever been to a sushi restaurant with me you’d know I love sea urchin (“uni” in Japanese).  The part of the sea urchin that you actually eat is the ovaries, called corals or roe, and it’s a culinary delicacy in many parts of the world. It’s hard to describe the taste but to me it’s like savory clean ocean water if that makes sense. Some people describe the taste as “umami” which is the fifth taste sensation school didn’t teach you about (the other four are sweet, salty, sour, and bitter).

Usually I eat the uni Japanese style as sashimi or regular sushi but yesterday I stopped by the Halal Market and picked up some amazing olive oil and instantly remembered this episode of No Reservations where Anthony was in Greece and had some sea urchin. Here’s the clip…

(skip to about 1:40 to see what I’m talking about)

Here’s the olive oil I got from the market

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And here’s that amazing sea urchin in olive oil, fresh lemon juice, cilantro and a little sea salt.

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Eaten on toasted flat bread. Fucking amazing!

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Dinner last night at Avocado was like a multi cultural club. Mushroom enchiladas and mango salsa from Mexico, beer from Japan, soju from Korea and sea urchin in olive oil from Heaven…

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