What is uni?
Uni is Japanese for sea urchin. The edible portion of sea urchin is actually the gonads. That’s right, the gonads.
For those brave enough to venture past the mental blockage of your brain trying to prevent you from eating the yellow, bumpy, creamy tongue-shaped genitals of the spikey echinoderm, lies a truly prized (acquired) delicacy.
With only 5 “tongues” inside each sea urchin, it’s easy to see why these are such an expensive delicacy. They live on the sea floor and are harvested by hand. Back in the day, Korean ‘haenyo’ divers would free dive to collect sea urchins. Uni have since been over-harvested around the world, especially off the coast of Japan.
Uni are in fact a pest in many places including California where they are decimating local sea kelp. California now supplies a lot of the world’s uni, which is great for both kelp and us as consumers.
What does uni taste like?
Uni is probably the most unique tasting seafood that I have ever had and I have grown to love it. They are buttery, sweet, creamy, umami, salty – indescribable, ha ha. They have a buttery texture with a salty umami taste. Uni is delicious, and as the world learns more about them, they are being used in more and more cuisines – not just sushi and Japanese food. Uni ice cream, uni butter, uni pasta, the list goes on …
Where to buy uni
The problem is, they are quite expensive and you MUST get them as fresh as possible.
Expensive – no joke, edible sea urchins can not currently be farmed and must be fetched from the sea by hand. They are gathered, dismantled and shipped all by hand and this must be done very quickly to preserve their freshness. All of this ups the price and makes them harder to find at your local seafood shop. I live in Montreal and get them from my favourite fish store La Mer.
Freshness – oh man, make sure you get them really fresh because uni can go from one of the most delicious things in the world to the most foul. Check the dates or buy the urchins ALIVE. At your fish shop, find out what day the uni arrived and look at which ones still have moving spines, creepy I know. But these will be the most delicious and help with your echinoderm genocidal tendencies.
How to clean uni
Many fish shops sell uni still in their spiky shell. I would suggest buying a pack of shelled urchins, especially the first time you try them. It can be a difficult task to remove all of the gritty bits and the last thing you want is crunchy pieces stuck in your teeth.
Here are 2 uni that I recently opened.
Using kitchen scissors, I cut a hole in the top and with the cold tap running, picked out everything except the 5 edible “tongues.” I used chopsticks and a protective glove so I wouldn’t get spiked.
The photo below is the first uni and you can see how tiny those tongues are. This helps explain why uni are so expensive. There is so much work involved in harvesting and then extracting the edible parts. And they are often tiny!
The photo below is the second urchin I opened and I completely butchered it. I cut a hole around the top, as normal, but the tongues were SO BIG that I accidentally cut into them. I’ve never seen such big tongues! It was tricky to clean as I didn’t want to lose even more delicious bits.
Here is a side by side comparison showing just how big the second uni tongues were. You can also see how much I butchered the process! As the tongues weren’t intact, I had to be so gentle. Even trying to dry them with paper towel was a mess and I lost more meat. Ha ha, you live and you learn!
How to use uni in sushi
I use uni as a nigiri topping and also slap them in rolls or on ships. For the really adventurous, you can even just sprinkle some nikiri sauce and eat them straight up.
Gobble gobble. Yummy gonads.
