Percebes (Goose Neck Barnacles)

Name: Percebes (Goose Neck Barnacles)
Total time: 600 s
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 2 lb goose neck barnacles; 1 lot of salt

NorCalForager @cook_4841902

San Francisco, CA

Pretty crazy looking, huh?

The tide was out pretty low the other morning, so I got some friends together to wake up early and head out to the tide pools. We were hoping to get some good urchin or monkey faced eel, but no luck there.

Instead, we happened upon these crazy creatures. They're called Goose Neck Barnacles. In Spain, they're a delicacy, known there as Percebes, but they're not widely available in the US. They grow with mussels, on the sides of rocks. They love sea mist and crashing waves.

Pretty crazy looking, huh?

NorCalForager @cook_4841902

San Francisco, CA

Pretty crazy looking, huh?

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Ingredients

10 mins

2 lbgoose neck barnacles
1lot of salt

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Steps

10 mins

1

You can spot goose neck barnacles growing in clumps of mussels. See the little dinosaur-like heads popping out?
2

When you clear away the mussels, you see that these creatures grow in these tentacle-like clumps.
3

To prepare them, put a large pot of heavily salted water to boil. As your water comes to a boil, prepare a large ice bath and place it near your boiling area.
4

Toss your catch into the boiling water and blanch for about 3 minutes.
5

When the 3 minutes are up, remove the percebes from the pot and transfer them to the ice bath.
6

Once chilled, you will need to peel them. Careful, they tend to squirt water as they are peeled. Pinch each tube, up close to the ugly head part, and tear. The sheath should split relatively easily.
7

Now, pull off the head. If you're careful, you may be able to pull out the fan without separating it from the tube. The fan is the creature's food collector. It's edible, and looks pretty crazy.
8

Remove the meat from the tube, and set it aside. Here's what the final product looks like. 10 oz. yield!
9

These are wonderful alone, similar to calamari maybe, but the meat really reminds me of abalone. Chop them up and add them to a pasta if you like. Next time, I wanna try to deep fry some.