Jellyfish

Finally, I can cross another one off my list!

Yesterday, I ate jellyfish.

I know many of you are curious about it- what it tastes like and all that. I will say in the many strange things I have eaten, it IS one of the strangest, and not exactly my favorite... but it's not bad and worth a try.

The jellyfish I bought at the Asian market was packaged, not fresh, and only contained the jellyfish and craploads of salt. In fact it required several changes of water to make it palatable. The package suggested soaking for 3 hours, changing the water every 30 minutes. Obviously I don't have that kind of time on my hands, so I just dumped it into a bowl of water and took it to work with me, where I changed the water every couple of hours during my breaks. By time I got home it was all rinsed and de-salted, and ready for cooking.

Now I used to joke that my kombucha scobys looked like jellyfish. I had no clue how totally accurate that description is. Behold... jellyfish. It looks like a mammoth scoby! Or chicken skin. It does look a lot like chicken skin...

Cooking instructions said to be quick- cooking no longer than 8 minutes. Well I'm down with that, being time crunched and all. I started 2 large pots of water boiling on the stove and got all my prep work out of the way- cutting up the (2) jellyfish into strips, cutting up the broccoli, and making a sauce. The sauce was sort of thrown together at random. Tomato paste, sesame oil, wheat-free tamari, lemon juice, minced garlic, minced ginger... and I think that's it. Oh, and sriracha!

Broccoli into one pot to blanch, jellyfish in the other to cook. I figured 5 minutes (the minimum time indicated on the package) was adequate. Drained the broccoli, then drained the jellyfish. I sauced them both up and combined them in the bowl, and topped it with sesame seeds. It looked almost restaurant quality! I pulled out my fancy chopsticks for this one.

So it looks good right, But how does it taste?

Not much like anything at all really. The jellyfish itself had no real detectable flavor, but the spicy sesame sauce sure did!

Texture was unexpected. I was imagining something closer to squid or octopus, but that's not it at all. Jellyfish is wiggly. It reminded me of boiled chicken skin, only thicker. I wouldn't call it gross, just... different. Being that the jellyfish doesn't lend much nutrition to a dish, and doesn't have much by way of mouth feel, I'd say it makes a better accompaniment than a main ingredient.

And I noticed something amusing. Once cooked, the jellyfish got these little... I wouldn't call them spines, because they're not sharp. Protrusions? It certainly looked like I was eating sea creature. The texture was just a little gelatinous.

Over all, I don't love it and I don't hate it. Sure, I might buy another one next time I'm in Rochester just to play around with. It's worth a few bucks.

In Other News:

I'm obsessed with durian. Seriously, I have a problem I ate an entire durian in less than a week. It's a good thing I bought two! The second will remain frozen for another couple of weeks. At least.

Also:

I did finish February's 1000 Squat Challenge, though it was a few hours or so late. I had a really crappy day on Wednesday and totally forgot about my final 50, which I promptly finished Thursday morning. Still, 1000 squats in less than 30 days. I can be proud of that.

And Finally:

Another reminder that I'm raising money for St Jude Children's Research Hospital as part of Warrior Dash. If you would like to donate, go to THIS PAGE. On behalf of the kiddos, I thank you!