Let me start of by saying I absolutely love love love these little shellfish. It's almost a fetish for me, made much more severe due to the fact that I am not able to get these shellfish in Sydney (until today). I only get to eat them when I go back to Singapore, but when I do I can go quite mad with greed. I've been known to buy 4kg to share between four friends in one sitting...we unfortunately were only able to eat half of that amount.
|
| image by: Valter Jacinto | Portugal |
Blood cockles are... a bivalve... from the family cae...double hinged... they use haemoglobin to deliver oxygen...oh I'm sure you can wiki the specifics if you want to find out. I know the Welsh, Japanese and Thai people eat blood cockles as well as the Singaporeans and Malaysians. They can be grilled on the bbq or boiled in water. The way I eat them is to
boil them briefly in water and then dip them in a belachan chilli sauce with a squirt of lime....mmmm...
The blood cockles seen in the front of the plate may be bought from Springvale in Melbourne for $7.99/kg. They are best eaten slightly undercooked, rare, so that they are still tender. The shells should not be too small nor should they be too big as they are tough over a certain size. The ones in the picture above look to be just the right size.
I'm not sure why blood cockles of the right size and quality just aren't available in Sydney when they are so readily available in Melbourne. I have seen cockles of the correct size in a random korean supermart near homebush, but they were frozen and selling at $18/kg (which is ridiculous as they cost $2/kg in Singapore and $7.99/kg in Melbourne). I have also seen cockles the size of my fist, and heeding the advice of my more knowledgeable relatives I steered clear of those. That makes the number of times I've seen blood cockles in Sydney, a grand total of two, in the eight and a half years I've been living here.
Today however, I had my third sighting in Chinatown. The cockles were definitely on the large side, and didn't look that appealing, however I knew that if I didn't buy some I'd regret it. Well...after getting home and cooking them, I regretted it anyway. They were too tough and chewy for my liking and they didn't really have that nice a flavour either.
...and the search goes on...maybe I should move to Springvale in Melbourne...
