Acid-Cooked Chelae Larvae
The Marianai mostly live underwater, so their cuisine does not call for much cooking, as you can imagine.
This week we thought we'd bring you a newsworthy recipe from Mariana, the Shard that's been in the news so much thanks to the exposure it's getting from the Tidal Fury tour headlined by Sonar, the lead singer, who's from there.
The Marianai mostly live underwater, so their cuisine does not call for much cooking, as you can imagine. In fact, they eat most of their food raw. However, they've developed a technique of "cooking" food using acidic water. It denatures the proteins much in the same way that cooking does, and makes it yummy, too.
The Marianai repelled the Chelae invasion by setting off underwater volcanoes, which killed off the invading Chelae -- and nearly killed them off, too! They found that the Chelae larvae didn't die in the acidic water, but were rendered immobile. So, being a thrifty people, they gathered them up, cooked them in acid, and ate them. Here's a receipt from Mariana!
Ingredients:
· 1 kg Chelae larvae, cut into bite-sized pieces
· 500 ml sea dragon acid
· 1 bunch algák kelp, finely chopped
· 300 mg diced bors sea cucumber (optional)
· 250 mg újhagyma (a pungent kelp)
· 1 jalapeño pepper (not in the original recipe, but trust me)
· 4 kagyló mollusks (an even more pungent sort of clam)
· salt and ground pepper to taste
If you don't have Chelae larvae around (and I hope you don't!), feel free to substitute shrimp, halibut or scallops. Lime juice can substitute for sea dragon acid, cilantro for the algák, bell peppers for the bors, scallions for the újhagyma and garlic for the kagyló.
Write and let me know how it turns out!
