Uni appetizers two kinds 雲丹の前菜２種

As I mentioned previously, Maruhide 丸秀 is the best place to get consistently high-quality uni and uni products. I wanted to get some fresh uni for the New Year. Although I checked the web site regularly fresh uni was not available for some time. So when I saw it became available recently, I could not resist and ordered fresh uni (both regular and in salt water or "Kaisui-uni" 海水うに). I also ordered some "uni shuto " ウニ酒盗 which is preserved and frozen and lasts longer than fresh uni. This is second best (compared to fresh uni) but among the class of "preserved" uni, this is the best by far. We had an uni tasting the evening the uni arrived. It consisted of regular uni and uni in salt water. We also included some ikura like we did before. We finished the evening with a small uni and ikura "donburi" rice bowl 雲丹いくら丼. 

The next evening, I made a small uni appetizer dish. Although it is hard to see in the picture, I put cubes of avocado dressed in lemon juice in the bottom of the bowl then topped them with uni, "kinshi-ran" 金糸卵 golden thread egg and nori strips or "kizami-nori" 刻み海苔. I added wasabi-jouyu わさび醤油 (mixture of wasabi and soy sauce just before serving). Since the texure of avocado resembles fatty tuna sashimi, this combination went very well together. The avocado really complemented the uni.

The next evening I served the last of the salt water uni “as is” garnished with a small dab of wasabi and the finely chopped green part of scallion.  I included a small "cucumber and wakame seaweed salad" dressed with "sumiso" 酢味噌 dressing. Again, I added wasabi-jouyu just before serving.

As before both the regular and salt water uni were excellent. Just a bit of uni and cold sake, the flavor lingers in the mouth. This is such a luxury.