Jellyfish burgers

I cooked these on Blue Peter, BBC1

This may sound a bit weird and ridiculous, but jellyfish burgers are delicious! Jellyfish are in abundance in the oceans and so eating them doesn’t harm biodiversity. And if you’ve ever been stung by one, here’s your chance to get your own back!

You can buy edible jellyfish from most Chinese and Thai supermarkets. They come in two versions: ‘Jellyfish salad’ that’s ready to eat, and ‘salted’ where they’ve been preserved in salt and need to be soaked overnight to be edible.

Jellyfish facts:

1. They have no brain and no central nervous system...except for the box jellyfish which has 4 independent brains which have to compete for dominance.

2. 2.They are 95% Water and 4-5% protein
   

3. 3.The turritopsis nutricula jellyfish seems to be the only immortal being on the planet, havin gthe ability to rejuvenate itself when it becomes an adult.
   

4. 4.I like eating them.
   

5. 5.They don’t sting - at least the edible ones you can buy don’t

Bizarre & funny recipes

Jellyfish burgers straight from my frying pan

Recipe - Makes 4

Ingredients

125g jellyfish ready-to-eat (if you can only find salted jellyfish, that’s fine, but they must be rinsed, then soaked in water for at least 4hrs or overnight to remove the salt)

500g potatoes

75g butter

Salt & Pepper

3tsp toasted sesame oil

3tbsp fresh spring onions, finely sliced

1 tsp fresh ginger

2 Large handfuls fresh coriander leaves and stalks, finely chopped

2 tsp sweet chilli dipping sauce

Vegetable oil for frying

To serve: Sweet chili dipping sauce

Method

Squeeze as much water as possible out of the jellyfish, then pat dry with cloths or kitchen roll to remove more water. Chop thinly into shreds the size of tagliatelle, and about 2cm long. Place on a cloth to continue drying (you really need to get as much moisture as possible out of them). Meanwhile…

Make your mashed potato:

Peel the potatoes, then chop them into walnut-sized chunks.

Place them in a pan of hot water, bring to the boil and continue boiling for 12-15 minutes until tender

Drain the potatoes thoroughly, then mash thoroughly (we should use a potato ricer)

Add the butter, salt and pepper and stir through.

In a bowl, mix the toasted sesame oil, spring onions, ginger, chopped coriander and sweet chili dipping sauce together and stir well.

Put the mash into one large mixing bowl and add HALF of the toasted sesame oil/herb mixture, and mix together. In a second bowl, add the chopped jellyfish and the remaining toasted sesame oil/herb mixture, and mix together.

To make your burgers (you are basically making a mashed potato sandwich with the jellyfish mixture in the middle):

First take a handful of herby potato mixture and make a very flat disk the size of your palm. Lay it on a chopping board. Take a slightly smaller handful of the jellyfish mixture and place it on the potato so that it doesn’t reach the edges. Take another handful of potato and place it on the top. Mould the mixture around so that the jellyfish is cased in potato.

Heat a non-stick frying pan until medium-hot, add a tablespoon of vegetable oil and fry the burgers one at a time for only 2 mins on each side. You just need to brown the outsides (remember that the jellyfish and potato are all cooked and ready to eat.

Serve with jellyfish salad and sweet chili dipping sauce.