Wild at heart

Jonas Woolford plunges his hand into the gelatinous mass and pulls out a handful of the featureless meat, throwing it deftly into the hot pan along with a couple of ice cubes. “The ice cubes will create the steam we need and I just put the shell over the top like this,” he says, placing the clean abalone shell on to the now sizzling meat. “Anyone can do this at home, it’s very simple. All you need is 20 or 30 seconds ... and voila.”

Jonas passes me a generous chunk of the steamed greenlip abalone meat on a skewer and I pop the morsel into my mouth, releasing a burst of unfamiliar