Kayak Fishing and Diving Albion River June 1st-3rd.

What a great long weekend with friends and family at Albion, California.  Sunny, me, the wifey-poo, Sean,  Oggie, and Sunny's puppy Bender left Sacramento Friday morning to camp out and fish Albion Cove.  It was a great time and the fishing was also pretty good.  Albeit it could have been better if the mighty Pacific was a little less mighty on Friday and Saturday, but the cove did give us some protection and we still caught fish.  The winds on Friday and Saturday stayed in the 15-20 mph range and the wind waves mixed with a 6-8 foot swell made trolling outside for salmon a no go for me.  That was okay there were plenty of black rock fish, lingcod, a few cabs, and a few reds willing to bite on the inside of the cove and just outside outside. 

We could have easily caught limits every day, but only took enough fish for a few meals. Sunday was the best day as the winds stopped and the sun came out and the drift was nice and slow.  Sunny and I must have caught 10-15 undersized lings on Sunday just north of the cove, lots of big blacks and a few china rock fish. 

The crabbing was also pretty good, we had to wade through a ton of short to get 12 legal Sean and Oggie kept the crab trap baited and did most of the crabbing and drinking….  Sunny dove for abalone and uni and pulled 3 abs and a few urchin. 

After we got home on Monday night we had an epic kayak caught seafood feast at my house and had uni pasta, steamed crabs w/ corn and potatoes, rock fish tacos, and abalone.  Sunny, Oggie, Sean and I did the cooking with some help from others standing around drinking beers… everything came out great.   I was totally excited to get some fresh uni and wanted to try and recreate a uni pasta dish I had at Café Boulud in New York when Monica and I were there a few months ago.  Below is the recipe I came up with for the uni pasta, everyone at the party loved it. Keep in mind I was making this for 17 people last night… If you try it you might want to cut down the size.

Uni Pasta 

2 pounds fettuccini

4 sea urchin edible parts only

1 Pint heavy cream

1 large egg

1-2  tablespoons chili powder

2-3 cloves crushed garlic

1 shallot diced fine

1 stick butter

Salt

Nori  chopped fine

Roasted sesame seeds

Chopped Italian parsley

Romano Cheese grated

In a large pot boil water for the pasta with a good about of kosher salt, Add fettuccini. Cook to aldente nothing more…

In a sauce pan over medium-low heat add butter, shallot and cook until shallot softens, add garlic cook a few more seconds. 

While shallot is cooking in butter, whisk together cream, egg and Uni until it is fully incorporated and there are no more chunks of uni or egg.

Slowly pour cream, egg and uni mixture into butter, shallot and garlic while whisking constantly.  Make sure your butter in not too hot to make the cream break, if this happens you have ruined the sauce. 

Keep sauce on low heat whisking constantly, until slightly thickened.  Add chili powder now keep on stove top for a few more seconds.

Drain pasta and in a large bowl incorporate pasta and sauce, make sure every noodle has sauce.  Plate pasta with sauce, sprinkle sesame seeds, chopped parsley, chopped Nori, and a generous about of Romano Cheese.  Serve.