(Photo/Island)
High-grade Japanese ingredients made from Ezo Eoso
When it comes to snail seafood, most people think of stir-fried appetizers, the so-called "small fresh", which is difficult to compare with seafood dishes such as abalone, lobster, and grouper.
The author has also tasted all kinds of snail seafood along the southern coast, and few people have been impressed. However, after tasting some conches caught from the cold water mass area of the Yellow Sea in Shandong, they were amazed, and these snails produced in the cold water sea can be called the "big freshness" of the sea.
The empty shell of the Apple Eospiro of The Peel
The first cold-water conch I tasted was in Chengshantou, Shandong, the price is more than a dozen pieces a pound, but it is a seafood that is not very common, the scientific name is Pi's apple Eluo Volutharpa ampullacea perryi, which is only distributed in the Yellow Sea in China.
This snail is as large as a baby's fist, the shell is as thick as a ball, the shell is as thin as paper, and the amount of meat is thick, but its flesh is extremely crisp but not delicate and sweet, far from being comparable to some conchs in the south (such as "loud snail", that is, coconut vortex snail Melo melo). The flesh of the snail is as dull as rubber, and can only be made up for the seasoning with heavy materials, and this cold-water snail only needs to be fried with shell and ginger and then simmered with cooking wine, which is delicious.
What is even more amazing is that its liver, about the size of two spiral layers, is brownish yellow in color, delicate and dense and sweet, but it is not greasy like foie gras, it is simply a delicious taste.
The author purchased the Kamin windmill Eluo live
It was this experience that made the author have a great improvement in the delicious taste of the conch, so I spent a lot of effort to continue to look for this kind of cold-water conch.
At present, the easiest to get started in China is the Kamin windmill Eluo Neptunea arthritica cumingii, which is very common in Dalian's aquatic market, generally known as "wild snail" or "windmill snail", and it is not difficult to see in the aquatic market of large cities.
This snail is the most common economic conch in the Yellow Bohai Sea, large and high in price, but it also inherits the advantages of the delicate and crisp meat of cold water conch, suitable for cutting into thin slices and then adding dried peppers to stir-fry, even if it is slightly overheated, it will not become a rubber taste, but the snail liver is not particularly good.
(Kamin windmill conch with different colors)
Why are these northern snails so much more delicious than southern conchs? A big reason is because its growing waters are cold, its growth rate is very low, so the meat can be more tender and sweet, in addition to the carnivorousness of many taxa is also related to it.
Although the latitude of the Yellow Sea is not high enough, because of the presence of special cold water masses, many northern snails that cannot tolerate high temperatures can also settle south.
A large number of cold-water snails inhabit the waters further north, namely the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Bering Sea, with the most abundant species and numbers of Buccinidae in the Elocidae family.
Some of the conchs I bought from the Sea of Okhotsk were in my hand
Among the snails produced in the northern country, the Ezo snail Neptunea polycostata can be called the "king of conch", the most famous of the cold-water conch, and the number is also large, basically only distributed in the cold waters north of Hokkaido, Japan. A large snail has five or six times the amount of meat as the Apple E-Snail, but the meat and liver are no less.
Due to its large size, the cooking methods are also more diverse, such as sashimi, shabu-shabu, barbecue, and sake steaming, each with its own advantages, but all of which are based on highlighting the sweetness of the meat itself. At present, only some high-end Japanese food stores and a very small number of professional aquatic product shops can be seen in China, most of which are transported from Russia's Okhotsk Sea live, the cost is very high, not often seen, the author has only bought once, but the taste is naturally too good to say.
(Ezo snail, which is delicious no matter how you cook it, the picture is transferred from http://www.zukan-bouz.com)
If you are lucky enough to be able to buy these delicacies from the north, you must not put heavy materials, just add salt water to boil wine and other simple ways to release its own lusciousness, too much seasoning will only waste this rare delicacy.