Sea Urchin Shooters

I ADORE sea urchin. Well, I adore all seafood, but sea urchin has a delicate creaminess that sends me to the moon and back. There is just something about the way that it melts on my tongue, coating my palate with the sweetness of fresh seafood before fading away, leaving me with a craving for more. But sometimes when you want to serve urchin at a party, you want to dress it up just a little – maybe a simple dressing to enhance the flavour perhaps?

Well thanks to Cando Fishing, I had some really fresh sea urchin to play with.

For the dressing, I used

• Soy
• Ginger
• Mirin
• Yuzu Juice
• Sesame Oil
• A touch of sugar

I first placed the soy, miring and slices of ginger into a pot, and heated it gently to infuse. I added just a touch of sugar to balance the saltiness, and the yuzu to provide a light citrusy flavour. Then I remove the ginger slices, and let the dressing cool.

Then place your pieces of sea urchin in your shot glasses, drizzle the cooled dressing over the top, and top with finely diced seeded chilli – I didn’t cause my guests were not chilli eaters – and a light grating of ginger. I find that if I keep my ginger in the freezer, it gives me feathery shavings that just add a light zing to the sea urchin. If you like a little booze in your shooters, might I suggest a tiny splash of sake.

This is a slightly different angle to shooters – if you like oyster shooters you should absolutely try sea urchin shooters – and this allows you to enjoy the natural sea flavour of the urchin. So tasty.

The most important thing is to get super fresh urchin, and I very luckily got given mine by Cando Fishing that I met at the Fine Food Australia Trade Show. I had a chat to John, who was from Cando fishing and very patient in answering my questions. You can read about my chat with John – and all about the best season for urchin and how to pick the best urchin – here.