Uni-Fest

[Daniel]

Ok.. So my buddy has been wanting me to make him an Uni centric dinner.. I have very little experience with the product besides eating.. I really love the freshness of uni and thinks it pairs incredibly well with shiso leaves and cream..

1)Soup:

Start with an uni lobster bisque.. Add big chucnks of lobster into the soup..

2)Salad:

Either an uni salad dressing or make a salad and have uni bruschetta served on the side.. I could use a lot of help here.. Maybe a salad dressing made from uni mayo.. I also really like the idea of adding uni to scrambled eggs..Pink eggs?

3)Pasta:

Pasta here is a tricky one.. I wanted to do Fried Uni Rice balls with mozzarella.. Or there is Fettucini in an uni cream sauce sprinkled with shiso on top..(In the cream sauce you can also leave whole pieces of cooked uni for texture) Or I could do fried uni raviolis, or just uni risotto? But something is missing in the rissotto it seems to plain..

4)Steak:

I was thinking something like a petit filet with uni butter over top.. Uni grits on the side.. Uni grits is a take on the Southern Shrimp and Gritz thing..

Desserts: Uni Cream Brulee, Uni Ice cream somehow?

P.S I cant get out of my mind Oyster Po Boy with an Uni Garlic Mayo Dressing.

Anyway, would love to hear suggestions.. What are some of your favorite Uni Combinations or dishes outside of the traditional applicatioins..

Thanks,

Daniel

Edited November 29, 2006 by Daniel (log)

[russ parsons]

in my experience, uni is a little tough to cook with. though it certainly seems to have a very forceful flavor by itself, it really disappears into other ingredients. i worked for a couple of weeks trying to do an uni panna cotta or custard, which seemed like a natural. never could get enough flavor. a friend finally did one, but it involved basically pureeing a whole raft of uni and thickening it with a little kombu broth. he's a chef, so that made sense. i could see doing a dinner party when each appetizer basically cost me about $20.

it works well in pasta sauces, but only if you add just a little cream and let it melt into it. i did one that was based on something michel richard does--slice cuttlefish steaks really, really thin, then flash them in boiling water and sauce them with uni and cream--it looks like pasta.

i've come down to the point where i serve uni a couple of times a year, usually in the most basic way--bruschetta with a little lemon juice. that seems to really give people the full effect of the ingredient.

[s_sevilla]

Try as I might to try Uni and get myself to like it, eating it makes me retch.....maybe I'll give myself another year and try to eat it again.

[BryanZ]

I kill a package of the stuff in a day or two when I'm home, so, like your friend, I have the uni-fever.

I do agree with Russ, however, that it is difficult to really get the uni flavor to come through without using a lot of it.

Anyway, here are some ideas.

Slow-cooked egg (preferrably in a water bath but poached would work too) with uni and a light cream broth made with cauliflower or artichoke or something.

Mini arancini with just a basic risotto and a couple uni tongues in the center of each. They'd be a bitch to make but would be really tasty I think.

I like the stuffed pasta idea, but I think you want to do small shapes. Again, since you need a lot of it to get that quintesstially uni-y flavor, you want to minimize the pasta. Vadouvan (in a foie gras ravioli thread) has suggested rolling out your dough super thin and fortifying it with high-protein flour. You just need to find something else to mix the uni with to make the filling.

I've thought about the uni custard but it seems like it'd get lost in the egg. I think the soft-cooked egg might be the subtler way to go.

You're on your own with the ice cream.

[BryanZ]

Try as I might to try Uni and get myself to like it, eating it makes me retch.....maybe I'll give myself another year and try to eat it again.

←

The great amount of respect I have have for your understanding of (food) science just took a severe and perhaps irreversible nose dive. Figure out what Adria is doing with that new spherizing agent and I might forgive you.

[aprilmei]

Uni is one of my favourite foods but I like it better raw than cooked. The only really delicious cooked uni dishes I had were uni chawanmushi at a Japanese restaurant, and Robuchon's sea urchin with fennel cream, served at Robuchon a Galera in Macau. At the new l'Atelier in Hong Kong there's uni with lobster jelly and cauliflower cream which is beyond sublime - but it's not cooked. another (raw) preparation I like is uni with soft beancurd. Yeah, I know there's no textural contrast but it's still delicious.

[Shalmanese]

I had an amuse of Uni and Oyster with a whole buch of different stuff in it. I can't remember exactly how it was made but the taste was amazing.

[Kent Wang]

Uni shooter with sake, maybe with a raw quail egg too.

[Gilb3rt]

Uni shooter is good,

uni, quel eggyolk, sake, ponzu and a litle chillie.

uni also super good with raspberry's

nut's and apples also very good with uni paste / mayo

[Luckylies]

I made a fantastic basil wrapped tempura uni that I was really happy with. Basically I layed a sheet of cling wrap, then basil, then uni, then tied it into a bundle and froze it into a ball. I then tempura'd and fried the whole bit. It was splendid...crunchy then creamy with just that touch of basil....mmm. maybe this could be the fried element of a tiny uni po boy?

I also love the uni panna cotta idea. I might do it with a panna cotta with uni lobes layed over the top..perhaps season the panna cotta complimentarily.

also make sure you have a course where the uni really stands alone. For a real addict, that's very important.

Also perhaps pair one course with toro, If she likes uni toro's likely on the list too.

what about a cream croquette with uni in the center?

uni with a cucumber granite?

uni resting on a bed of very soft tofu surroundd by a pool of a light dashi?

hot egg custard (more like quiche filling) with uni on top. hit the uni with some sugar and carmelize it.

cauliflower puree flavored with lobster tomolley with uni and black cavir on top atop a gaufrette.!!!!!!!!!

uni on a bed of traditional tartar accompaniments. parsley, egg white/yolk, shallot, capers etc.

i'm tapped but, boy do I like my ideas

[Daniel]

emma,

for real.... if anyone needs to help me in my unifest, its you.. email me at dmeks1@aol.com.. you will eat with us..

Edited December 1, 2006 by Daniel (log)

[ned]

Esca does an uni pasta--pasta la guitarra--that is my favorite pasta dish in NYC. The uni, in quantity, is added just at the end, stirred gently into the pasta.

As an aside, I was at yasuda last night and ate quite a lot of Santa Barbera uni. It was sweet rich and delicious. I think it's a great moment to make an uni meal.

[Luckylies]

emma,

for real....  if anyone needs to help me in my unifest, its you.. email me at dmeks1@aol.com.. you will eat with us..     

MEKELBURG

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this is going to be so good.

and perhaps I'll finally learn to post pictures.

[philadining]

Sorry, I don't know how to make this, but perhaps you can reverse-engineer it (or send Shola an email...)

Had this at StudioKitchen, and it rocked:

Sea Urchin Custard, Maple Sherry Caramel, Marcona Almond, American Hackleback Caviar