Spine thrilling
Sea urchin can be one of the best things you can eat or one of the worst things, depending on the day. The handling is so important. They go from being sweet and tasting like the ocean to tasting like, for want of a better term, cat food.
If you open up a sea urchin, it’s probably 40 per cent liquid. As soon as it dies, it starts to break down.
The section we eat is the gonads. It’s probably the only animal where we exclusively eat the genitals. I did briefly serve goat testicles as a single-serve item – they lasted for three weeks until we ran out. One bloke came back twice. They were good balls.
In Tasmania, there are two types of sea urchin: a long spine and a short spine. The long spine has been introduced, but they are more prolific and less affected by season. I prefer the short spine – it’s smaller and sweeter but more inconsistent. In high numbers, both can have a fairly negative effect on kelp forest, and most of the ones we eat are a bycatch from abalone divers.
I treat sea urchins as you would an oyster. One or two portions at the beginning of a meal is one of the best ways to begin an evening. The warm buttered toast is a lovely complement.
There are two ways to prepare a sea urchin. You can cut around the top with scissors. The other way is to push two spoons into the mouth of the sea urchin and break it open like an egg. Much like caviar, you should try not to touch the tongue with metal, as this taints it. As soon as you break one cell, the rest follow. I use wooden
• implements and find this works well.