Chapter 755: Sea Delicacies
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Australia and New Zealand were located at the junction of continental plates and were prone to earthquakes in the surrounding seas. Earthquakes on the ocean floor caused cracks in the earth’s crust, making them prone to oceanic volcanoes.
Not all ocean volcanoes had lava spillages. In fact, it should be said that most ocean volcanoes did not spill lava but they did expel gases.
These gases were very hot and were the kind of gases that Li Du had been exposed to. If it weren’t for the seawater cooling them down, they would have sprayed him, and he would probably have needed skin grafts like Ivana.
After applying the ointment, Li Du got better. He was bored and wanted to go into the water. However, Sophie stopped him and did not let him go in the water temporarily.
A raft came up and Cruz finally smiled. “Hey, you’re a flying sea man? Isn’t that cool?”
“How did you see that?” asked Li Du.
He had not been thrown overboard by the storm, so it would have been impossible for Cruz to know unless he had been right in front of him. And he just noticed that Cruz hadn’t been around.
“You must have been a sea fighter,” Cruz said, laughing at his question. “That’s why I say it’s dangerous. I suggest you get out of here.”
Li Du looked at him suspiciously and said, “Are you stalking me?”
Cruz stopped laughing and said, “Who’s stalking you? I just have eyes, and I saw that your back was red and obviously burned.”
With that, he shrugged and went on, “How could you get burned in the ocean? You definitely experienced the hot steam jet coming out from the cracks in the sea. The impact was big, so I guessed that you became a flying sea man.”
“That’s a reasonable guess. Yes, you’re right,” admitted Li Du.
“You have to be careful. There are a lot of cracks in the ocean around here, and every one of those cracks could spew hot steam. If I were you, I’d leave,” Cruz lamented.
“You don’t know me, man,” said Li Du. “I’m a brave man. I will conquer this sea, and I will be the best abalone fisherman here!”
He was joking, but Cruz took it seriously.
Staring at Li Du, he nodded slowly and said, “Well, at least you have a brave heart. All the best, then. Be careful of all the cracks in the sea, I can only warn you.”
He sailed away like a lone ranger.
After this, Hans rose to the surface several times, and at last, he had caught a large black gold abalone.
He held it in his hand and showed it off, only to find out that there was something wrong with Li Du.
Knowing there was a hot steam jet on the bottom of the sea, he was horrified. “Sh*t, fortunately, you were about to surface, and your back was facing the seabed. If your face had been facing it…”
Needless to say, the rest of the story was clear.
Li Du was also a little frightened because Hans was right. He had not thought of that. If the hot steam had been blowing a minute earlier, he would have been facing down. He would have been hurt and would have to wear a veil like Ivana.
So, that’s why it was difficult to harvest the black gold abalone. The sea was nothing like the land. Threats were everywhere, all the time.
However, the payoff was so high that even if someone were as rich as Li Du, once he earned 40,000 AUD from black gold abalone, it became tempting.
But this accident had happened suddenly and wasn’t something Li Du had planned for. He hadn’t known something like this could happen, or he would’ve had the little bug check around the area, and he wouldn’t have been hurt.
He didn’t worry about it because now he knew it was a threat. He would pay more attention to it through the little flying bug and avoid the cracks in the ocean floor so that he wouldn’t be sprayed.
Presently, there were three black gold abalone ready to prepare for lunch.
As anyone who has ever eaten shellfish knows, there are a lot of shellfish in the sea that have very little meat, such as scallops, which have just a bit of meat between two large shells like oysters. Some types of shellfish were even worse. You should be grateful if the flesh was one-fifth of the shell’s weight.
Black gold abalone sometimes looked like it would be that way, too. It had a large carapace and was often encrusted with some unknown debris, so it looked like it would have very little flesh.
In fact, this was actually not the case. If you cleaned up the black gold abalone, you would know that it had a thick flesh and a thin shell. A big abalone could have flesh that made up 50% of its mass and internal organs that made up 20% of its mass.
The other difference between the black gold abalone and most shellfish was that its internal organs, or bowels, could be eaten, so 70% of its body was edible.
Brother Wolf did not know how to cook abalone, so Li Du did the honors.
He learned how to cook abalone when he was researching abalone. This type of abalone could be prepared different ways and could be made into various dishes.
Brother Wolf didn’t know how to kill the black gold abalone, either. He just washed away the appearance of debris and handed the rest to Li Du.
Picking up a large abalone, Li Du asked, “Who wants to take a picture?”
Walker, Allen, Hannah, and Lu Guan rushed over, holding up their mobile phone cameras and taking pictures, and then they posted them on their social network profiles to show off.
When they finished taking the photos, Li Du began to clean up.
He wiped off the black gold abalone’s shell and found the sharp end where the mouth was, and then he put his thumb between the flesh and the shell. This was the first step.
He pulled the abalone apart a little bit so he could tear the belly and the connection between the abalone and the shell. Some of the things that came out were the bowels.
The bowels were not thrown away. Li Du was cooking porridge on the kitchen counter. There was rice, pork pieces, spring onion leaves, and shrimp. He cut the abalone bowels into cubes and threw them in the porridge. This made it abalone porridge.
This practice belonged to Chinese cuisine. In ancient China, the abalone porridge eaten by noble officials was made from the abalone belly of good, large abalone. After the abalone was boiled in a big fire, the nutrition could be better released.
After digging out its bowels, he looked in the abalone and saw something pink.
It was a black gold abalone tooth. He pulled it out and motioned to brother Wolf. “Pick them out, but try not to hurt the meat.”
His last words were unnecessary. Brother Wolf had knife skills like a professional. The sharp knife moved like lightning in his hand, and the abalone teeth were cut out one by one while the meat was not hurt at all.
Throwing away the abalone teeth, Li Du cut off the hem of its skirt, which was a good part to stir fry because it absorbed seasoning and made it taste good.
The rest of the abalone could be made into sashimi, be boiled, or even made teppanyaki style.
Li Du chose to make sashimi. He wrapped the abalone in a clean towel and punched it hard. This tenderized the abalone meat. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be easy to chew.
He gave the abalone to Brother Wolf, who took out a sharp knife and quickly sliced the abalone into even pieces.
The other two live abalones were treated similarly, but the meat was boiled and cooked teppanyaki style, respectively. There wasn’t much of each dish, but this way everyone could try a bigger variety of dishes.
