What Is It And How Do I Cook It: Uh...Whelks?

Deployment Day has come and gone, so the TF girls are a little blue.  I repeat my deployment mantra, "It Could Always Be Worse" (because it could and sometimes it is), and will consider this time a gift of further Japan exploration.  Much more can fit into my life when I'm not cooking dinner!

Our tradition is for Mr. TF to grill as much as possible in the week leading up to D-Day.  One, because I am too depressed.  Two, because I won't learn can't grill and that means no delicious steak for a least half a year.  Three, no one's firing up the old, charcoal grill during deployment, so no delicious steaks for Mr. TF, either.  On this grilling occasion, we decided seafood sounded perfect, so he went out to pick up some salmon and scallops!

Mr. TF bought the salmon, but the grocery store was out of scallops.  So he purchased these, instead.

 Me (dubiously): "What are those?"
Mr. TF: "I have no idea!  Don't they look delicious?
Me (more dubiously): "Ummmm...not really.  How are we going to cook them?"
Mr. TF:  "On the grill, and stop making that face.  This is an adventure!  We'll just top them with a little butter, garlic, and salt, and be good to go!"

I love seafood.  I love food in general.  Except for bananas, because they are gross and have this weird texture and a bad smell and my parents made me eat one every Sunday on the way to church and I would crack open our van's third row window and quietly poke pieces out into the street until we'd pull up to church and my banana would magically be all gone. Even sushi does not generally pose a problem (except for the sea urchin...vile stuff), as I am usually game to try anything and everything. This...slimy thing, still in its shell, was making me nervous.  I tried to look up the kanji on the computer...no luck.  That made me even more leery.  A seafood so obscure that even online dictionaries didn't recognize it?  Sketchy.

This being the 21st century, I didn't need to be in suspense for long.  I whipped out my iPhone, took a photo of the aforementioned seafood and emailed it to one of my English Students.

"Dear English Student,


     So sorry to bother you.  I sent my husband to the grocery store for scallops and salmon, and he came back with this. What is this?  I apologize for any inconvenience.  Thank-you so much."

 While we waited for her reply, I inspected the shell a little more closely.  It was soft and fleshy, with what appeared to be a sort of elongated foot.  On dry ground, soft and fleshy things that live in shells are...snails.  Was this a sea snail?  An immediate visit to Google Image confirmed my suspicions.  These were, indeed, sea snails.  Also known, in a less gorge-affecting term, as whelks.  As I like to consider myself an adventurous sort of person, and since one can't really blog about cooking something that one hasn't actually eaten, I gamely took photos as Mr. TF prepped the whelks.

Adding the garlic, salt, and pepper.

An reply from my student arrived.  She wasn't sure of the English name.  But she did have some helpful tips:

"There are three kanji in the yellow box.  Separate them into two wards.  The two separate wards mean For Sashimi.  My mom recommends cooking them in butter, like escargot."


There was never any chance that we were going to eat these as sashimi- raw.  But there was really no chance, once we realized that the whelks were retracting themselves deep inside their shells.

Yes.  The whelks were still alive.

Mr. TF was right on the money with his butter idea!

 Since our apartment is located on the top floor of our building, we have sole access to the roof (as previously seen in Adventures In Laundry: How To Dry Stuff).  Our grill is up there.  Grilling has a place in Japanese culture, but is done outside at local parks or inside with very small, table-top grills.  Every so often, we hear stories of neighbors calling the fire department, because of flames shooting up from an American backyard or balcony.  It appears that our neighbors have decided that our grill- located in the middle of a concrete roof- doesn't pose a threat.  No fire trucks, yet!

All prep work being complete, Mr. TF took the whelks up to the roof to meet their doom.

Smelling yummy...

I popped up on the roof just long enough to take the above photo.  Nothing like watching your dinner die.

Finished!  Almost time to eat!

Once off the grill, the whelks smelled delicious!  Hard to go wrong with butter, garlic, salt, and pepper! Removing them was fairly easy, once the shells cooled.  A stab of a fork, a gentle tug, and the meat corkscrewed right out of the shell.  The "foot" easily peeled off.  The foot didn't seem edible (and I don't really want to eat the foot of anything), so we set it aside.

My whelk.

Watching my dinner move during prep proved to be a little too much.  I ate one whelk and let Mr. TF have the rest.  In spite of my squeamishness, I have to admit that the whelk was delicious- if chewy.  I did a recipe search for other ways to prepare whelks.  Foodandwine.com had zero recipes, Saveur.com had one.  Clearly, whelks do not fare well with the American palate.  Which means you don't want to miss your chance while in Japan!

As for me, next time I will send Mr. TF back out for the scallops.

Ganbatte!

-The Tofu Fox

How To Prepare Whelks The Mr. Tofu Fox Way:

Whelks

Pinch of salt per whelk

Pinch of pepper per whelk

Pat of butter per whelk

Half a clove of minced garlic per whelk.

Sprinkle the salt, pepper, and minced garlic on top of each whelk.  Top each whelk with a pat of butter.  Grill to taste (only if your whelks are sashimi-grade) or until well-done.  If you want to make sure your whelks are dead, grill till very well-done.  Enjoy with a glass of wine and the snobbish certainty that you have attained Elite Foodie Status.


Disclaimer:  I do my best to make sure all my information is accurate.  However, details may change or I may just be flat-out wrong.  Please let me know if something needs a correction.  Thank-you!