How to eat BEES (4)

1 Name: キタ━━━━━━━━( ・∀・)━━━━━━━━!!!! [Del]

This ‘brood’ comb is rich in protein and other nutrients, and traditionally is eaten whole in some African cultures. In parts of Asia the larvae are a delicacy – boiled, or fried up with salt or sugar. As with other insect larvae, they are high in fat apparently taste nutty and smokey. The mature bees don’t taste as good, though they are edible.

2 Name: キタ━━━━━━━━( ・∀・)━━━━━━━━!!!! [Del]

Start with fresh peas in the pod. 1.5kg will yield about 500g, which the chefs say is enough for one serving. These need to be blanched in salted water – but just for one minute. Cool the peas in salted ice water, then dry them off. Add 400ml of cold-filtered water, season with salt and pepper, and blend thoroughly in a thermomix or blender.

To make the pea mixture creamy, you can strain it in a chinois, then place in a vacuum bag to remove the bubbles.

The honeybee larvae are served on top of the creamy soup. They suggest 8 fried and 5 blanched larvae, which should have been frozen.

To fry the larvae, heat a pan until very hot. Pour in sunflower oil, allow to heat but not smoke. Add the frozen bee larvae and fry until golden, puffed and crisp, 2-3 minutes. Blot the fried larvae on a paper towel, and keep in oven at 70˚C to dry, then salt.

For the blanched larvae, add salt and lovage leaves to boiling water. Take off the boil; add frozen larvae, and cook for at least 1.5 minutes. They can be kept in the water longer as it cools.

You can add barley too – around 10g per serving, boiled with lovage leaves until tender.

Lastly, some fermented pollen can be scattered on top - this is also known as ‘bee bread’, and is an incredible food which bees make by preserving pollen in empty comb cells in a mixture of nectar and digestive fluids. This process of fermentation makes it more nutritious and entirely transforms the flavour. That’s pretty impressive microbiology from creatures so small.

3 Name: キタ━━━━━━━━( ・∀・)━━━━━━━━!!!! [Del]

There used to be 3 bees here. Or were there 4? I loved them.

4 Name: キタ━━━━━━━━( ・∀・)━━━━━━━━!!!! [Del]

Sageru has never been a bees board.

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