Is it possible to cook jellyfish? Extreme food sources: Jellyfish. Is it possible to eat jellyfish

“Crystal meat” is how Chinese residents figuratively and poetically call jellyfish.
In China and South Korea, if a fish restaurant does not have jellyfish dishes on its menu, this does not give it the right to receive the highest category.
Jellyfish fishing is developed mainly in the countries of Southeast Asia: China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Among the edible jellyfish in these countries, the most popular are Rhopilema and Aurelia. The cost of one ton of salted jellyfish can reach 5-8 thousand US dollars.

In China, where jellyfish have been considered a favorite delicacy since ancient times, the mouth blades of captured jellyfish are separated and the umbrella is washed until the mucus is completely removed from the internal organs. Thus, essentially only the jelly-like mass of the umbrella goes into further processing. There is a very complex - from 3 to 6 stages - and long - from 20 to 40 days - procedure for soaking jellyfish umbrellas in a mixed solution of table salt and alum (or juice and leaves of tanning plant species). The dehydrated and hardened product - “crystal meat” - is subsequently used to prepare a wide variety of dishes. Salted jellyfish are added to salads, and also eaten boiled and fried, seasoned with pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg. Jellyfish itself is tasteless, so it is advisable to add various spices when cooking.
In Japan, where jellyfish is also considered a delicacy, the product undergoes no less thorough processing. The jellyfish umbrella is separated from the tentacles, dried and salted, and the salted jellyfish is desalinated immediately before cooking.
Jellyfish is extremely healthy; it contains various vitamins and minerals (manganese, iron, chromium, copper, 17 amino acids). The Japanese believe that jellyfish promote longevity. The Chinese call jellyfish “crystal meat”; they treat tracheitis and regulate blood pressure.

Jellyfish are placed in salads and desserts, made into sushi and rolls, and even used in hot dishes. In total, several dozen culinary masterpieces are created from jellyfish in China and Japan. The main conditions for a successful dish are a professional chef and a fresh product. Frozen jellyfish is absolutely impossible - after defrosting, it turns into a nasty slimy slurry. Therefore, jellyfish are not exported, and it is impossible to taste this delicacy far from its habitat.
Source otvet mail ru

In the cuisine of some eastern peoples, jellyfish fried in oil is an everyday dish. The bluish-green jellyfish, the bell of which reaches 60-70 cm, is quite suitable for use as food. In the waters of southern Primorye it is found in large quantities in June-August. You can catch it with nets. When processing jellyfish, they usually use an umbrella bell - a substance that resembles dense jelly, sometimes fleshy appendages similar in appearance to cauliflower. The jellyfish bell is thoroughly washed in sea water and then placed on clean sheets of plywood and dried in the sun.
Jellyfish can be first salted and then dried in the sun.
Dried jellyfish contains more than 10% protein, fat and other useful substances.

Here is an example of one of the popular Chinese salads. The jellyfish is soaked in water, salted in concentrated brine, and after three weeks it is removed and washed, but the main thing is not to damage the fragile “body.” Then it is again soaked in water for a quarter of an hour and dipped in boiling water for 10-15 seconds - again time is very important, an extra 3 seconds - and the tender “meat” turns into old rubber. The finished jellyfish is cut into strips and mixed with shrimp, garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil. The Japanese marinate jellyfish, and then also cut them into strips and mix them with stewed vegetables and herbs, and they are also added to fruit jellies and marmalades.
Source lifecity com ua

In their natural state - gracefully or menacingly pulsating with a dome, pulled by winds and ocean currents, jellyfish look little like potential food.

Eating jellyfish and ctenophore meat, jellyfish and ctenophore dishes, jellyfish salad recipe. Extreme cuisine.

Like many other sources of food, in addition to their unattractive appearance, many species of jellyfish have a deservedly bad reputation as creatures that are not very favorably disposed towards humans, capable, in particular, of ruining the pleasure of communicating with the gentle sea for an unwary swimmer.

Jellyfish have lived on Earth for more than 650 million years, which means they appeared before dinosaurs and sharks. Some may notice that over the past years they have not been very successful in developing their abilities. Jellyfish are a bag of jelly. The skin-like substance contains a gelatinous substance containing more than 95% water. The human body, one of the most “watery” creatures in the world, consists of only a little over seventy percent water. Jellyfish have no heart, brain, or bones. All that makes it a single organism are muscle fibers. The stomach is directly connected to the mouth, the only opening on the body. This means that through it not only food is introduced, but also waste products are eliminated.

The jellyfish also uses its mouth to move, first filling the stomach with water and then pushing it out in the direction opposite to the movement. Favorite foods include small drifting creatures collectively called zooplankton, including other jellyfish, juvenile fish, juvenile seahorses and crustacean larvae. There are about 200 species of these creatures - from the tiny, spherical thimble jellyfish of the Caribbean to the Arctic "lion's mane" with an umbrella diameter of about 2.7 meters and tentacles half the length of a football field. These coelenterates owe their name to their external resemblance to the character of ancient Greek mythology, Medusa the Gorgon.

The tentacles with which jellyfish paralyze prey and move it towards the mouth can cause some trouble for a person. A small “Portuguese man-of-war” - a jellyfish with a scarlet bag floating on the surface of the ocean and, like a sail, catching the wind, and with trailing tentacles emitting a bluish light, can cause more trouble for swimmers, stinging painfully with its stinging cells. The toxins of the Australian box jellyfish are stronger than the venom of a cobra and can cause death in a matter of minutes. According to statistics, jellyfish kill more people than white sharks. It is not surprising that many people do not perceive jellyfish as food.

But let's go beyond the undivided dominance of the Euro-American menu and go to Asia, where jellyfish are found in no less abundance than on the beach after a storm. They can be found in restaurants from Tokyo to San Francisco and Lima, usually in Japanese, less often in Chinese. According to economic reports, in 1997, Tokyo wholesalers alone sold about 360 tons of edible jellyfish and ctenophores. I was even treated to jellyfish salad on some Asian airline flights. What is usually surprising, besides the appearance of jellyfish and their dubious reputation, is that they have no taste. Absolutely.

If they are served, say, without liquid soy sauce or sesame oil, not as part of a chicken salad or with fish and vegetables, then the question will inevitably arise: is this food? It's like chewing rubber, some say. On the other hand, the viscous, cartilaginous structure of jellyfish is precisely what attracts. It’s no secret that many products only benefit from the unusual tactile sensations when consuming them. In addition, jellyfish are a source of low-fat protein such as albumin, egg white protein, and their tissue is rich in vitamins A and B.

Like many other exotic products - from snake meat to bird's nest soup, jellyfish are considered in the East a source of longevity, a remedy for common diseases and are currently being tested in reputable clinics and laboratories for possible use in the treatment of cancer. Jellyfish and ctenophores are also prized by residents of most Pacific Islands. In Samoa they are salted, and on the Gilbert Islands even very poisonous jellyfish, called sea wasps, are considered a delicacy. Their ovaries are dried and fried, claiming that they taste very much like tripe.

Seeing jellyfish in their natural state is truly disconcerting, but so are many other wonderful food sources. Caught jellyfish (the largest suppliers are Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines) have their tentacles removed, the rest dried, and as a result they look no more scary than dried mushrooms. “Umbrellas” of the most popular types reach a diameter of 37-50 centimeters and are sold dried in packages of 450 grams. Pre-preparation involves soaking for approximately 8 hours in three or four changes of water. Next, the swollen product is quickly doused with boiling water and washed with cold water, after which it is thinly sliced.

“It's an annoyance to some people and a delicacy to others,” said the superintendent of the Apalachee Area Planning Council, headquartered in Blountstown, Florida, when announcing the decision in 1997 to begin the state's first commercial harvest of jellyfish. The Asian market for the delicacy is expanding, he said, and Florida's fishing industry, like any other, is being forced to expand its scope as well. Georgia is second only to Florida in this regard. The state's revenue-generating shrimp catch was rapidly declining, and in 2003, jellyfish were chosen, albeit reluctantly, as a panacea.

For George Marra, head of the local Shrimp Fishermen's Association, the decision to fish for jellyfish was an act of desperation.

“If shrimp prices were kept at a level that ensured our survival, we would never switch to jellyfish.”

University of Georgia food technology professor Yao Wen Huang's favorable attitude towards jellyfish has been the subject of much ridicule, but since his childhood in Taiwan, the professor has known that jellyfish are a quality product valued for their high collagen content, which is believed to prevents the development of arthritis, gout and hypertension. The only thing that needed to be achieved was to shorten the usual 45-day salting and drying cycle, which would make the product competitive. Huang managed to reduce the processing time to a week, and this was enough to make jellyfish fishing profitable.

Jellyfish salad recipe.

150 g salted jellyfish.
1 large julienne cucumber.
1 tbsp. spoon of peanut butter.
1 tbsp. spoon of soy sauce.
1 tbsp. spoon of vinegar.
1 tbsp. spoon of sugar.
1 teaspoon sesame oil.
A little hot chili oil.

Rinse the jellyfish under running water for 20 minutes or until all the salt is gone. Cut into strips. Place in boiling water for 5 seconds, then rinse with cold water and let it drain. Cut the cucumber into slices and place them on a plate. Place jellyfish on top and pour the mixture of the remaining ingredients over them. Serve with lettuce leaves.

Based on materials from the book “Extreme Cuisine”.
Jerry Hopkins.

Today I was at the sea, but an obvious excess of jellyfish prevented me from swimming heartily, but I remembered a recent conversation with friends that at some resorts jellyfish dishes are a common occurrence, but in Crimea they are served only in one or two restaurants.

In general, I decided to start a “” section, fortunately, that there are enough articles on this topic, and add an article about jellyfish dishes there. Or rather, they are tasty, healthy and can attract visitors to your restaurant or cafe, which means making your resort business more profitable.

Is it possible to eat jellyfish?

While collecting material on this business idea, I discovered that many are sure that only jellyfish that live in the southern seas are edible, and those from the Black Sea cannot be eaten. Actually this is not true. A lot of scientific work has been carried out, which answered in detail the question of whether it is possible to eat jellyfish that live in the Black Sea. She proved that our cornorots and aurelias are quite edible, they can be eaten and even prepared in various canned foods.

Possibilities for industrial use of jellyfish

Every year, 300-320 thousand tons of these animals are caught in the world. They mainly go to the markets of Southeast Asian countries, primarily China and Japan. But supplies to other countries are constantly increasing, perhaps due to the growing popularity of Chinese and Japanese cuisine in the world. In Russia, jellyfish dishes are very rare, but coastal sailors catch them for export to China. In total, 12 species are used for food purposes in the world, most of which are rootworms.

Interestingly, the UN recommends that countries with access to the sea pay attention to jellyfish as an alternative food product containing protein and a lot of microelements. Experts of this organization are confident that the amazing ability of these creatures to reproduce rapidly will not make humans a threat to them, but will help diversify the diet of people and at the same time protect other species, such as fish and fish, from predatory fishing.

Dish of jellyfish

What is prepared from jellyfish

In China, these animals are quite a common product, used in cooking and folk medicine for almost 2000 years. Preparations made from them treat tracheitis, high blood pressure and some other diseases. Due to their low calorie content, they are considered a dietary product for those who want to lose extra pounds. By the way, this would be a good idea for entrepreneurs who decide to introduce jellyfish dishes into the menu of their restaurants. Many people dream of eating deliciously and not gaining weight at the same time.

At the end of the 20th century, Americans also had to pay attention to jellyfish. This was due to the catastrophic decline in shrimp catches. First, commercial fishing began in Florida, then in Georgia. Moreover, this innovation was supported by a native of Taiwan, who had been familiar with jellyfish dishes since childhood, Professor Yao Wen Huang. He was able to reduce the salting and drying cycle, usually lasting 45 days, to a week, and this made such a fishery quite profitable.

In China, jellyfish are called “crystal meat” and are raised on special farms, salted or dried on site, and then sent for sale. The harvesting procedure itself is quite complex and consists of several stages: the umbrellas are separated, washed, soaked in a special solution or dried. By the way, the cost of a ton of ready-made salted jellyfish reaches $5000-8000. Before cooking, they are also soaked and then dipped in boiling water for 10-50 seconds. This is enough for the meat to become tender and crispy, but if you overdo it, it will become tough as rubber.

Interestingly, it is not possible to freeze jellyfish - when they thaw, they turn into a pile of mucus. Therefore, cooking fresh jellyfish, as they like to do in Japan, can only be done directly in their habitat. The Japanese make jellyfish into sushi, rolls, filling for pies, and add it to soups and salads. In Thailand they are used to make noodles.

Jellyfish themselves are completely tasteless, so they are cooked with various seasonings or mixed with other foods. In total, hundreds of dishes are prepared from them: salted, boiled, dried, pickled, fried and added to sweets.

What qualities should modern portable technology have? This is necessarily good performance, ergonomics and mobility. That is why macbook pro laptops are in constant demand all over the world.

Did you know that jellyfish are not only beautiful and unusual inhabitants of the seas and oceans, but also a fairly popular delicacy, especially in Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia and other Asian countries. Is it possible to prepare an exotic jellyfish dish at home? Continuing the post is the personal experience of one cook.

Jellyfish are eaten and prepared in different ways. The Chinese, for example, wash them, remove the tentacles and pickle them in a mixture of salt and alum for several weeks or even months using complex technology, after which they sometimes even dry them. Before use, the product is soaked and then boiled for a short time. If you cook soaked jellyfish a little longer than expected, they become too tough. They write that jellyfish are an extremely useful product.
I want to talk about my experiences with preparing and using our Black Sea jellyfish for food. I immediately foresee objections and indignation from many: why do we need this? Where are we and where are the jellyfish? I won’t put that in my mouth! Etc. But don't promise it. Who knows where BP will find you? Even if not B, but individual. And so that it does not turn into a truly P, extra knowledge will not be superfluous. I don’t want to fantasize about shipwrecks and other situations when this knowledge might be useful, in short: read!

Jellyfish dishes

It is several kilometers from my city to the Black Sea Bay. Recently, while having a picnic on the beach with my family, I caught seven kilograms of cornet jellyfish in a basin and brought them home.

First experience, unsuccessful

After washing two kilograms of jellyfish under the tap, I put them in a saucepan, generously sprinkling them with salt.

Soon the jellyfish released juice, but only a little. After a few hours they were a very unsightly sight, especially compared to the jellyfish from the other batch.

Perhaps in a few weeks or months the jellyfish would have released almost all their water, especially if I had added alum to the salt, as the Chinese do. I realized that this was not our method, so I washed the jellyfish of salt and processed them using the second method.

Second experience, also unsuccessful

I put another two kilograms of washed jellyfish into boiling water and cooked for about 15 minutes. However, boiled is a strong word. It took almost 10 minutes for the water to boil again, so they actually didn’t cook for long.

During this time, the jellyfish shrunk considerably, releasing water, and when I took them out of the boiling water, they already weighed noticeably less - 958 g.

As they cooled down, the jellyfish continued to release water and shrink, and eventually decreased in volume. Weight decreased to 295g.

I finely chopped one, seasoned it with pepper, sprinkled it with vinegar, oil, salt to taste, and tried it. The taste is pleasant, but the jellyfish’s own taste was not felt. It only tasted like the seasonings I added. The smell - besides the smell of seasonings - is the pleasant smell of the sea. Density – like soft jelly, not dense enough. Therefore, in order for the jellyfish to thicken further, I generously sprinkled them with salt and left them for several days.

Already on the second day, they released a lot of water from themselves and swam in the resulting concentrated brine. The smell remained pleasant, despite the fact that the jar was kept warm. A week later, after removing the jellyfish from the brine, I weighed them. From two kilograms of live jellyfish, only 70 grams remain!

Moreover, the bodies of the jellyfish softened and lost their shape. Taking 100 grams of these salted jellyfish (I also boiled and salted the rest, so I had a little more product), I washed them of salt and soaked them in fresh water for an hour, changing the water a couple of times. As it turned out later, it took longer to soak: they remained slightly over-salted. Weighing after soaking showed that only 80 grams remained! I fried this portion for several minutes in sunflower oil. In the end it turned out to be ridiculously small: 33 grams! This is from about three kilograms of live jellyfish.

I didn’t add any seasonings, but the taste of the product was pleasant, although slightly over-salted. The density is like that of fried butter, and the consistency resembles jelly. But 33 grams out of 3 kilograms is too little! They write that the jellyfish consists of 98% water, but this means that the remaining 2% is dry matter. I still have a little more than one percent left, and the substance is far from dry!……
I came to the conclusion that during the cooking process the jellyfish lost not only water, but also nutrients, so I decided to continue the experiments to find the optimal method.

Third experiment, successful

I assumed my mistake was that I didn't cook the jellyfish long enough and they didn't firm up enough when cooked. So I went to the bay again and brought back another 5 kilograms of jellyfish. I cooked them in two batches in such a way that after boiling they cooked for about half an hour. During this time, the jellyfish noticeably shrunk, releasing water from themselves, and after cooking, almost no water was released during cooling. Five kilograms of live jellyfish yielded 432 grams. This represents 8.6% of live weight.

I cut half of it - 216 grams - into large pieces and fried it in sunflower oil for several minutes.

The result was 164 g of fried jellyfish, which is 6.5% of the original live weight. The view, unlike the previous experience, is very appetizing.

I salted them to taste, added a pinch of sugar, sprinkled them with vinegar, and peppered them with a ground mixture of peppers. After standing overnight in the refrigerator, the pieces absorbed the marinade and were ready. I'm describing. The density is like that of pickled butter. The consistency resembles a dense elastic jelly. The aroma of added seasonings plus a distinct smell of the sea. The taste is a bit like pickled mushrooms. However, the product can be given any flavor, since jellyfish do not have a distinct taste of their own. I won’t be surprised if next time I manage to prepare a sweet dish like jelly or marmalade from jellyfish. It's a joke for now, but who knows!

Experience four, also successful

As I already said, I fried only half of the boiled jellyfish. I salted the other half, generously sprinkling it with salt. For a few days they still released water from themselves and swam in brine. The jellyfish retained their shape, decreasing only in size. From 216g of boiled jellyfish, after salting them, it turned out to be 119g, and after one and a half hours of soaking with changing water - 100g. This is from 2500 g of live jellyfish. That is 4% of live weight.

The appearance of the product was not as appetizing as that of those jellyfish that were not salted. They were soft, there was no elasticity. After a short frying in vegetable oil, 72g of fried product was obtained. This is slightly less than three percent of the initial live weight.

Seasoned with pepper and vinegar, the jellyfish tasted just as good as those marinated without salting, although they were inferior in appearance.

1. In some extreme cases, jellyfish can provide a reliable source of food if you have a large cooking vessel and sufficient fuel. The yield of the finished product, depending on the degree of processing, ranges from three to nine percent of live weight. If salt is available, boiled jellyfish can be stored for future use.
2. It is not necessary to separate the tentacles from the umbrella; you need to cook the jellyfish for half an hour from the moment of boiling.
3. Boiled jellyfish can either be pickled for future use, or fried in oil (the best option), or eaten unfried, which is not as tasty, but acceptable.
4. With the help of various seasonings, spices and spices, jellyfish can be given a wide variety of taste and aroma, but even without any additives, boiled jellyfish are completely edible and do not have an unpleasant taste or smell.

The invasion of jellyfish on the Black Sea coast in recent years has truly become a natural disaster. The author himself, while fishing, repeatedly fell into jellyfish cauldrons, in which even a boat stopped. They often create, literally, walls on beaches, extending from the surface of the water to the very bottom. In such conditions there is simply no need to talk about swimming. Jellyfish cause a lot of concern among vacationers, causing, although not fatal, but unpleasant long-term burns. Black Sea jellyfish are not dangerous to humans. Their tentacles are equipped with so-called stinging cells. From touching them, a person gets a nettle burn, traces of which remain on the body for up to several hours.

Incredibly, the facts are as follows: jellyfish have long been used in cooking. Let's talk about everything in order.

There are two types of jellyfish in the Black Sea. Aurelia (Aurelia aurita) or eared aurelia. It has a flat-shaped umbrella with a diameter of 10-20 cm, along the edges of which there are numerous thread-like tentacles. Most often colorless, sometimes with a slight tint of blue, pink, and purple. The second species is Cornerot (Rhizostoma pulmo), alicone or alicone. This is the largest Black Sea jellyfish. It can be recognized by its large umbrella - up to 50 cm in diameter, from which eight large root-like processes extend, which gave the jellyfish its name. It can be painted in pink, greenish, blue colors.

However, among jellyfish there are also poisonous individuals, which has become a real problem for many world resorts, leading to numerous deaths, even surpassing deaths from shark attacks. This phenomenon has already received its poetic name: THE KISS OF JELLOWSHIP (photo).

However, traditionally, the problem has two sides. It turns out that they are actively used in cooking. This kind of development also exists in relation to Black Sea jellyfish. Despite the extremely high water content of their body (95-98%), they are fished by a number of countries in Southeast Asia, primarily in China and Japan. Among the 12 species of jellyfish caught for food purposes, the most valuable are the representatives of the root-stomes (family Rhizostomatidae) - Rhopilema esculentum and Rhopilema asamushi, Aurelia and some others.

Jellyfish dishes have been used in Chinese cooking and folk medicine for more than 1,700 years. They are recommended for tracheitis, high blood pressure and other diseases. They are also a dietary product for those who want to lose weight.
Jellyfish are used quite widely in Asian cuisines. So, in China they have been salted or dried for more than a thousand years (the result is something like dried mushrooms or thin brown pancakes).

Jellyfish are also present in Japanese sushi recipes. In Thailand they are used to make noodles. In 2006, during the mass reproduction of large jellyfish off the coast of Japan, these jelly-like creatures were even used as a filling for pies and soups were made from them. And since the Chinese and Japanese live in many countries around the world, fishing for edible species also exists in small quantities in India, the USA and Australia.

The current annual global catch of jellyfish is 300-320 thousand tons. More and more countries are developing their fishery. Thus, in 2000, some fisheries organizations in the Primorsky Territory (Russian Federation) began fishing for jellyfish and exporting them to China, and in 2005 they were included in the list of fishing grounds in Kamchatka.

Both types of Black Sea jellyfish are suitable for the production of food, feed and technical products. This is evidenced by the results of pioneering technological research by AzCherNIRO and AzNIIRKh, conducted in the 70s of the 20th century.

As studies by the Odessa branch of AzCherNIRO have shown, the mesoglea of ​​the umbrella contains 98.29% moisture and 1.71% dry matter, which includes 74.0% mineral and 26.0% organic substances, including 12.45% protein . The mesoglea of ​​the cornerota umbrella contains 98.25% moisture and 1.75% dry matter, which includes 72.59% mineral and 27.41% organic substances, including 15.80% protein and 1.03% fat . Jellyfish protein is complete and contains 17 amino acids, including a full set of essential ones.

Salted products were experimentally produced from each type of jellyfish according to the order and technology of the Japanese company Morikawa Shoji Kaisha Ltd. A product was obtained from the cornet in the form of a dense thin film with the smell of seaweed, which contained 70% moisture, 9% protein, 0.35% fat and 16.8% minerals. Aurelia products looked like the same film and contained 16.4% moisture, 7.7% protein and 16.5% minerals.

The yield of finished products for the first type was 2.4%, for the second - 1.03%. The product received approval from the tasting council of the VRPO "Azcherryba", but its production on an industrial scale and export were not realized.

AzNIIRH and the Pobeda fish farm of the Krasnodar Fisherman Collective Farm Union have developed a method for preserving jellyfish for the purpose of their subsequent use as organic additives in building materials, which increases the mechanical strength of products by at least 20-30%.

The publication uses materials from the site FishIndustry.net based on the article by YugNIRO (Kerch) “Jellyfish as a potential fishery object.”

If you want to experiment, make a jellyfish salad with shrimp.

250 g salted jellyfish
50 g dried shrimp
60 g soy sauce
25 g garlic
1 tbsp. spoon of sesame oil
1 tbsp. spoon of vinegar.

Preparation:

Soak the salted jellyfish in cold water for 30-40 minutes, rinse, dry, and cut into strips. Dip it in boiling water for 7-10 seconds, quickly remove it and hold it in cold water again for 10-20 minutes, dry it. Boil the shrimp, dry in a colander and on a napkin.

First place jellyfish strips in a salad bowl, place shrimp on it, pour soy sauce mixed with sesame oil, vinegar and sprinkle the dish with finely chopped garlic. Bon appetit!