CATDOLL : CATDOLL: How much does abalone cost per pound?

Depending on the type, the price can range from a few hundred to tens of thousands of yuan.

☆Fresh abalone

Fresh abalone is live abalone. After scrubbing the shell with a brush, the abalone meat is dug out, the hard tissue in the middle and around is cut off, and the attached mucus is cleaned with coarse salt. After cleaning, live abalone generally does not need to be cooked deliberately, and the excellent flavor can be tasted. Among them, "sashimi" is the most common way to eat it raw, and there are also cooking methods such as charcoal grilling and blanching.

☆Dried Abalone

Dried abalone is made by air-drying fresh abalone. It is a very precious ingredient in seafood, and the best quality is the net abalone from Aomori Prefecture, Japan.

Dried abalone is best cooked in a clay pot with a slow cooker to preserve its original flavor. Therefore, the cooking process is more complicated and requires more skills than other types. The basic processing methods are: 1. Soak in cold water the night before. 2. Take out the abalone the next day and scrub the dried abalone clean, otherwise it will affect the taste and quality of the abalone. 3. After washing, add water to cover the abalone and steam it in a steamer over high heat for 10 hours. 4. Add abalone, old hen, pork ribs, lard and sugar to the clay pot and slow cook for 10 hours (you can also use a steamer or electric cooker, but the clay pot has a heat preservation function, so the effect is best). 5. Take out after slow cooking, add the original juice and oyster sauce and slow cook the whole abalone, and you can taste the delicious abalone with excellent taste. The size of dried abalone is usually calculated by the number of heads per kilogram. For example, nine heads means there are 9 abalones per kilogram. Therefore, the smaller the number of heads, the bigger each abalone is and the higher the price.

When buying dried abalone, you can carefully observe the appearance and choose those with complete appearance, plump meat, normal shape and bright color. After buying dried abalone, first wrap it completely with plastic bags, newspapers and plastic bags in sequence, seal it and store it in the freezer. As long as it is not damp, it can be stored for about half a year to a year.

☆Frozen abalone

Frozen abalone can be purchased at local supermarkets. After purchase, it needs to be stored in a freezer. It cannot be thawed after being frozen. It should be eaten on the same day after being taken out of the freezer, otherwise the original flavor will be lost and the deliciousness of the abalone will not be tasted. How to cook frozen abalone? First, it must be thawed, then it must be cleaned with a brush, and the abalone meat must be beaten on both sides with a knife to soften the meat naturally. After adding egg white, wine and other seasonings to marinate, it can be stir-fried or blanched, etc. It tastes very good. If you are good at cooking, you can also stew it.

☆Canned abaloneCanned abalone is the most commonly used type of abalone. In addition to its good quality, its biggest advantage is time-saving and convenience. People can put it in their mouths or cook it after opening the can. Since canned abalone will become older as it is cooked, it should not be cooked for a long time. It is recommended to put the can in hot water. When buying it in Xianmai, you should pay attention to its manufacturing date and it should be consumed within the shelf life. Do not pour out the soup completely after opening the can, because if you cannot finish it in one go, you can soak the abalone in the soup, seal it tightly, and store it in the refrigerator to prevent the abalone meat from drying out, aging, and losing its original taste. But it is best not to store it for more than 5 days.

Abalone with soy sauce

Ingredients: 10 abalones, 2 kohlrabi leaves, 25 grams of salt, 1 carrot, 50 grams of thick soy sauce, 20 grams of sugar, 2 cloves of garlic, 5 grams of ginger, 25 grams of water

Preparation method: 1. Wash the abalone, boil it in salt water with the shell, and then scoop out the abalone meat with a spoon.

2. Chop the garlic into fine pieces and cut the ginger into thin slices.

3. Take out the abalone's internal organs, make a cross-shaped cut on the abalone meat, then put it into the pot, add minced garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and sugar as seasonings, add 25 grams of water, bring to a boil over high heat, then gradually turn down the heat. When it turns black and moist, turn off the heat.

4. Cut the kohlrabi leaves into shreds and spread them on a plate. Then put the abalones into their shells one by one and place them on the plate. Add some carrot slices cut into flower shapes on top as decoration.

Abalone and shark fin are undoubtedly the most expensive dishes at the moment. According to common sense, a high price must mean good quality. However, the reporter recently learned from the China Cuisine Association that the high-priced abalone and shark fin have an astonishing profit margin, with a gross profit of up to 300%.

According to experts from the China Cuisine Association, the high price of abalone and shark fins lies in the technical content of making the dish and the cost of making the soup. The taste of the dish also comes from these two links. However, in order to save costs, some catering companies currently choose to cut corners in these two links, using abalone sauce instead of making soup, and using fresh abalone instead of dried abalone to make abalone. In this way, not only is there no technical content, the cost is also greatly reduced, but the sales price is still expensive.

According to industry insiders, the standard way to cook abalone is to select strictly dried abalone, which goes through a highly technical water-soaking process, and then is cooked with abalone broth. Although dishes made with fresh chilled abalone and abalone sauce may not look any different in appearance, they are not up to their name in terms of price or quality.

A Chinese cooking master who has been in the industry for many years told reporters that a barrel of abalone sauce can be used to make 50 abalones, and the price of abalone sauce in the market is between 80 yuan and 200 yuan per barrel. Many companies that sell abalone use fresh abalone as raw materials, that is, fresh abalone that has been refrigerated. The market price of this kind of abalone is an average of 400 yuan per catty. The so-called number of abalone refers to the number of abalones in a catty. Two abalones per catty are called two-headed abalones, and six abalones per catty are called six-headed abalones. At present, the abalone that consumers can eat in restaurants are mostly six-headed abalones and eight-headed abalones. The precious one-headed abalone and two-headed abalone are rarely seen. In this way, the cost of abalone is not difficult to calculate. The price of six-headed abalone is less than 70 yuan per catty, and the cost of a simple abalone sauce of 16 to 40 yuan is less than 100 yuan. Even the production cost of two-headed abalone is only more than 200 yuan. However, the cheapest abalone in Beijing restaurants currently costs more than 300 yuan per portion, and the price of abalone can even reach 3,000 yuan per portion, with a gross profit of an astonishing 300%.

In addition, very few abalones are left intact during the drying process. Generally, out of 10 kilograms of abalone, no more than two kilograms are left intact after drying. This is why abalones are so expensive. According to the standard, non-authentic abalones cannot be processed, but there are indeed many restaurants in Beijing that use inferior abalone to make dishes and sell them at high prices.

Here, the cheapest price of farmed abalone is 5 yuan per piece, and the usual price is 8-12 yuan.