So the way it worked was guests chose a special bowl to use that night for soup, and they got to keep it as a reminder that there are always empty bowls in the world. It’s sentimental, it’s special, but most of all, it was delicious.  There were about a dozen different, gourmet soups lined up in crock pots on one counter, loaf upon loaf of fresh from the oven, still warm bread on another, and batches of cookies spread about for an after-dinner treat. Tim and I used and re-used our new bowls about 4 times trying many of the great soups!

And speaking of bowls, we acquired these two beautiful Japanese bowls with tomatoes on vines and eggplants on vines.  I am in love with them.  They are definitely a great memento from the event and will always remind us of the food bank.  This was our first time attending the Empty Bowl Project in Valdez, and I made and donated a delicious and crusty no-knead bread.  It was well received, but I will definitely be on the look-out throughout the year for equally special bowls to donate to next year’s event.

Meet the spot prawn.  They are actually classified as shrimp, but don’t tell them that.  Spot prawns have been awarded their stately ‘prawn’ status primarily due to their massive size when compared to their shrimpy brethren.  They are, as a matter of fact, the largest shrimp on the west coast.

Spot prawns are easily identified by the distinct white spots on the first abdominal segment near the head, and on the fifth abdominal segment down near the tail.  They have long sword-like rostrums (“noses”), and mohawk-like dorsal spines on top of their heads.  Watch out for the sharp telson on the tail, it can nick you when they start thrashing about.  Most interesting of all, they come out of the water bright orange already!  Back in my east-coast days when I would buy bags of shrimp from the seafood counter at the local grocery store, all uncooked shrimp were gray.  These orange shrimp were quite a surprise.

If you’re not planning on cooking spot prawns alive it’s important to remove the heads as soon as possible.  Almost immediately after death, an enzyme in the prawn’s head is released through the body causing the flesh to soften.  Removing the head is quite easy, but it may make some people squirm.

WARNING:  THE FOLLOWING PICTURES MAY BE GRAPHIC IN NATURE, BUT ALAS, IT IS NATURE.

To remove the head from the spot prawn, or from any shrimp for that matter, firmly hold the shrimp at the rear of the carapace (or head).  The shrimp may try to flip its tail about in an effort to free itself from your hungry grip, but be strong and hold tight!

Next, using your other hand, firmly grip the first abdominal segment of the spot prawn.  Try holding it as close to where the tail meets the head as possible.

With a firm grip on both the head and the tail, simply twist off the head.

When you pull the head and tail apart, you may sometimes end up with some innards still attached to the tail.  Simply rinse or pick those off.

Next thoroughly rinse the tails.  According to www.wildBCspotprawns.com, spot prawns have an enzyme on their tails that begins to permeate through the shell and turns the meat mushy.  Removing the head and rinsing the tail keeps the flesh firm.

For optimum freshness store the tails on ice until you are ready to eat or package them. They will maintain their structure for a few days in the fridge if you regularly change the ice and pour off the meltwater.

If you are freezing your catch, you want to prevent freezer burn by packaging the well-rinsed tails loosely in a plastic container or a zip-top bag, and covering with a light saline solution.  We like to mix 1 tablespoon kosher salt to 1 quart water.  Our shrimp have tasted great even after a year in the freezer using this method.  We’ve tried vacuum packing the spot prawns, but the spiny suckers kept puncturing the bags.

I also bag and freeze the shrimp heads.  When I have accumulated a few pounds of heads I use them to make a killer shrimp stock that I then use for chowders and cioppino’s.  If you have the time and the freezer space, I would recommend doing the same.  Why buy those tiny bottles of clam juice?

When you’re ready to eat you’re prized catch, you can either cook them up in their shells, or you can peel them prior to cooking for effortless eating.  The best way to shell and devein shrimp is to use these handy dandy Seafood Scissors.  They are about $10, and they are worth every penny.  Don’t mess around with a knife.  That’s too scary.

Insert the scissors into the meat of the shrimp near the top of the back (you’ll see an indentation or even the vein), and cut through 4 or 5 of the abdominal plates.

If you want to keep the prawn in its shell just pull out the vein and you’re done.  Now grill it, broil it, boil it, and enjoy it.

If you’re feeling especially motivated, and you are a kind soul that cares about the effortless consumption of meals by your guests, shelling the shrimp is easy and it’s not as tedious as it seems.  To remove the shell, peel back first two shell segments and pull the shrimp meat out while simultaneously pinching the meat out of the tail.  If you pinch just right, and you pull carefully enough, the vein will come out with the shell.  If it doesn’t,  just clean the vein out afterward.  Take note that spot prawns are really hard to peel when they are super fresh.  The flesh will stick to the shell, so we tend to cook super fresh shrimp in the shell.  They are actually easier to peel after they have been frozen.

And that concludes our lesson for today.  For extra credit you may come to my house and clean my shrimp.  If you have any questions comment or concerns, I’m here to help.  If you have alternate methods, I’d love to hear them!

This post is also inspring me to do some photography tip posts, so watch for some tips soon.  I just need to take a few example photos to show the difference in settings.

A green sea urchin crawled into our shrimp pots this weekend, so it’s the perfect time to put together a post on how to clean these intimidating little creatures.  Normally the only way to collect these spiny gems is to dive and hand-harvest them, but if you’re as lucky as we were, they just may find you.

Now Tim and I have never had sea urchin before, and since the point of The Living Alaska Project is to push ourselves out of our comfort zones and to experience more, eating sea urchin seemed like a great opportunity.  We did a bit of research on urchin prep, and this was our winning method.

The edible part of the sea urchin is its gonads, the 5 bright orange or yellow sacs that are attached to the inside of the test, or shell.  They are commercially referred to as ‘roe’ since they resemble fish egg sacs.  Sea urchin roe is considered a delicacy in many cuisines.  Urchin roe is regularly consumed along the Mediterranean, and is particularly relished in Japan where it is called uni.  It is very sweet and delicate, and it tastes like the sea smells, with a soft, almost creamy texture.

Begin with your sea urchin.  We caught a green urchin which typically grows 2 to 3 inches in diameter.

Flip the sea urchin over to expose its mouth.  You’ll notice it’s white teeth in the center surrounded by a fleshy ring.

Many people use scissors to cut the bottoms off urchins, and some people even have special urchin-opening tools.  I prefer to use the fork method because it’s simple and everyone has forks.  I found this method on the blog Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska, and I love it.  You insert one tine of your fork into the shell near the sea urchin’s mouth and work the fork around in a circle like the aforementioned blog’s author notes “an army-issue can-opener.”

Using the fork just like an old-fashioned can opener, work your way around the shell in a circle. . .

. . . until the bottom of the urchin’s shell can be removed.

Once you remove the bottom of the shell, the urchin’s innards are exposed.  I’ve heard some people sip the fluid out first, but I just dump it out.

Next, try to very carefully remove all the dark bits.  Remove all the innards except for the brightly colored gonads.

Once the dark matter is removed you’re left with five tongues of roe still attached to the test.

At this point you can carefully scoop each tongue of roe out and eat it strait from the shell, or use it in your favorite sea urchin recipe. We just enjoyed ours as sashimi.

Sea Urchin Roe

Don’t be afraid to try something new!

Just a small side note:  there are over 500 species of urchins.  Green, red and purple are most commonly sold commercially, so I trust those as being safe.  I don’t know if all urchin species are edible, so I personally would stick to those three common species.

Our weather forecast called for rain, but thankfully the forecast was wrong.  In the bright sunshine we motored out to a beach beneath a few cascading waterfalls being fed by the melting snow above.

We got to our beach and unloaded all the gear. Diana was nice enough to start the charcoal and prep dinner while the rest of us headed out to pull the shrimp pots in order to gather the main ingredient to our beach-side feast.

We definitely weren't worried about going hungry; Spot prawns, ribeyes, baked potatoes and fresh corn.

The table was set for dinner. The view is looking toward Valdez.

Our Russian friends on the beach

Grilling up the steaks and spot prawns.

Sitting down to full plates amidst awesome scenery and sunshine.

Enjoying a great dinner with new friends.

Birthday Toast. Technically the birthday is tomorrow, but it was already tomorrow in Russia while we were toasting.

It's always good to have a friend that plays guitar for just these occasions.

Our new Russian friends.

The whole group, minus Diana taking the picture.

I do wish I had setup this timelapse with a higher frame rate. I thought the aurora had died off for the night and was planning on capturing a star/cloud timelapse for a couple of hours, then the aurora kicked back in!  This was taken between 2:00-3:00am.  I was across the bay looking back at town, the bright lights are from the harbor and docks.

The photos for this timelapse compilation were taken Sunday morning at Mineral Creek near our house. The rivers are really starting to flow with all the melting snow. Even though it is melting fast we still have 4 feet in our yard.

Whales!  We headed out on a sightseeing tour a couple days ago and we had a great day!  When we got to the Anderson Bay area we saw a humpback break the surface a few times.  Amazing.  Then we went around the corner into the narrows and found a pod of 7 Orcas!  It is amazing to see all the large marine mammals so close to town right now.   It is an amazing time of the year.  That was my last amazing for this post. Over and Out.

Anyway, whenever we cook something up that we really like, we want to share it.  It may not be a recipe of our very own, but it’s worth sharing.  The recipe we adapted here actually appeared in the July 2006 issue of Bon Appetit, and it suits venison tenderloin very well.  I’m betting the Smoky Chipotle Rub will be delicious on other cuts, and even on other meats, including fish.  I definitely saved the remaining rub in a little jar to put on a nice filet of salmon later this week.  And the leftover Three-Herb Chimichurri?  That’s going on some rockfish tacos!

So we begin with the Smoky Chipotle Rub.  Pay close attention, this is a hard one:

Put brown sugar, sweet smoked paprika, kosher salt, chipotle chile powder, and black pepper in a bowl . . .

. . . and stir until combined.  Phew.  I wasn’t sure if I’d make it through the explanation.

Pat the tenderloins dry with a paper towel, rub with oil, and generously coat with the chipotle rub.  They will already smell awesome.

Grill on medium high, and turn to sear.  Small deer tenderloins will be done to medium-rare basically once they are seared all the way around.  Just look at that delectably pink slice of wonderfulness!

Now the chimichurri.  You can make it ahead of time and store it in the fridge until you’re ready to serve.

The three herbs in this chimichurri are parsley, cilantro and mint.  The mint is delicious.  If you don’t usually cook with mint, especially in savory dishes, be brave and give it a go.  The other players are olive oil, red wine vinegar, fresh lemon juice, garlic, a small onion, salt, pepper and crushed red pepper.  The original recipe called for shallots, but our small town grocery store doesn’t always have them stocked, and when they do they cost a fortune.  All I’m saying is the recipe was great with a poor, lowly onion.  Don’t worry little onion, I still love you.

Let’s get cooking.  Add olive oil and red wine vinegar to  a blender . . .

Squeeze in some lemon.  We buy a big bag of lemons and limes at Costco or Sam’s Club.  We find that when we cook, we use them all up before they go bad.

Now add the cloves of garlic, onions (quartered), salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.

Blend until almost smooth.

Now add a quarter of the parsley, a quarter of the cilantro, and a quarter of the mint, and puree.  Repeat the process three more times until all the herbs have been incorporated.

Rockfish Tacos with Red Cabbage Slaw, Three Herb Chimichurri, and Chipotle Sour Cream

And there you have it.  An absolutely delectable venison tenderloin dish with two added bonuses:

1) leftover Smoky Chipotle Rub to happily season another meal, and
2) leftover Three-Herb Chimichurri to top delicious fish tacos!  ->

Shrimp pots prepared for deployment.  We are allowed to fish 5 pots per boat.

Sunset view of Port Valdez.  Our house/neighborhood is to the left of the dark spruce-covered hill you see on the left side of the picture.

Diana attaching a shrimp pot to the line with a long line clip.

Diana throwing the shrimp pot into the sea.

Shrimp pot making a splash.  Do your job, Mr. Pot.

Line deploying, buoy waiting.  Our boat name:  Sea Ducktion.  Get it?

Diana throwing the buoy into the water.  Now we let them soak.  We normally leave them 24-48 hours before we pull them back up.

24 hours later . . .

Reed trapped on the bow of the boat, watching as we pull the pots.  She likes shrimpies too.

Diana using the mini pot-puller to pull the shrimp pots.  All hail the mini pot puller.  Before this we pulled by hand, and our hands bled.  Literally.  It was horrible.

Hand-pulling only lasted 1 day.  We immediately invested in a pot puller.

First pot of spot prawns coming up.

Diana bringing the shrimp pot on board.

Close-up of the spot prawns we caught.

Diana freeing the spot prawns.  4 more pots to go.

It wasn’t a large catch, but it made a great dinner.

Our first spot prawn dinner of the year, an all-Alaska surf and turf.  Grilled Spot Prawns with Char Grilled Venison Tenderloins and Three-Herb Chimichurri.