Slowed Cooked Abalone with Winter Melon
The original recipe of a 2 Michelin Star chef!
DEAR ALL HOBBY CHEFS,
This recipe is special; it has kindly been contributed by the Executive Chef of a 2 Michelin starred restaurant. As you can see it looks great and is super delicious but not difficult to prepare!
The recipe relies heavily on the quality of the abalone, i.e. TellMama 6-head braised South African abalone
LITTLE PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE - SMALL ABALONE ARE FARMED, BIG ABALONE ARE WILD CAUGHT
Abalone grow extremely slowly, it would be totally unproductive for an aquaculture to grow abalone for more than 10 years, i.e. large abalone are always wild caught. On the other hand smaller, portion sized abalone are always farmed because strict regulation for sustainability reasons do not allow the harvest of small abalone in the wild.
INGREDIENTS (4 PERSON’S PORTION)
- Winter melon
- Tell Mama South Africa Abalone in sauce
SEASON WITH
- Sauce from the abalone can
- Oyster sauce
- Sugar
- Soy sauce
- Corn flour
- Chicken stock
COOKING
- Peel the winter melon, cut it into shape
- Cook it in the chicken stock until soft, place it on a plate
- Slow cook the sauce from the abalone can with chicken stock, oyster sauce and sugar for 10 minutes, add some soy sauce to colour the whole sauce
- Place the Tell Mama South Africa abalone on the winter melon
- Dissolve corn flour in 1/4 cup cold water, gradually add to the abalone sauce until it thickens
- Add the resulting sauce onto the abalone and winter melon
- Decorate with some radish sprouts on top of the abalone or any green you like
TOP CHEF’S TIP
The dish is easy to prepare, but looks impressive and is most delicious.
Winter melon taste is light, so better to make the sauce a little stronger to balance the taste.
This is a free style recipe, you can cut different shape of the winter melon; put less soy sauce for lighter colour, more soy sauce for darker colour, you are the own artist of your dish, let’s have fun in the kitchen!