How to prepare and cook conch meat

If you ever wondered what to do with the conch and its meat, then this post is for you. Here is a "how to" guide on preparing fresh conch and the different methods of cooking the meat.



Have you ever had someone gift you some meat and you have no idea what to do with it?

Well, today I'm going to help you figure out how to prepare conch meat.

And after this, you would then be able to choose whichever recipe you want to cook it with.

The majority of the time we get conch meat it is already out of the shell. Which is a good thing.

It takes a special skill to get the meat out of the shell so I am glad that there are people who go ahead and do that for me.

Even if we happen to get someone who just caught some fresh by the side of the road, (this happens often in the Caribbean), they take it out the shell for us.

So I only have to deal with the rubbery meat that's out.

What is conch meat?

Pronounced "konk" and commonly called lambi by Haitians, this is the meat from an oversized sea snail. It is native to the coasts of the Bahamas, Florida Keys, the Caribbean, and Bermuda.

It is commonly eaten raw or cooked. All ways are just delicious.

You are also wondering what conch tastes like. Its soft meat (once it has been tenderized) can be a little rubbery in texture. The smell of it reminds me a bit of crab. Not too strong of a "sea" smell.

Let's be real though, the majority of us are going to get our conch from a place that has already cleaned the conch for us. It might even be frozen conch. But we still need to be wary of what pieces we are choosing.

• Conch is commonly sold at fish markets and Caribbean markets over at the seafood area.
• Make sure the pieces are white, with some pink and orange.
• Make sure they are not grey.
• Make sure they do not have a "fishy" smell.

I like to soak my conch in some water with vinegar for a little bit if it is fresh from the sea conch. For at least an hour.

If it is a precooked conch you don't have to do this process.

Ways to tenderize conch

Regardless of how you plan to cook your conch, you need to get it tender before eating and cooking.

There are various methods for getting this done.

Prepping conch though takes a little work. It's rubbery meat from the start. And nobody wants to eat rubbery meat, so it needs to be tenderized before being eaten.

Pound method:

The most common way of tenderizing this meat is to pound conch meat. Here you are beating the meat till it resembles a chicken cutlet. But make sure you don't beat it too much that it starts to fall apart.

A meat tenderizer is the best tool for this, but I've also used a hammer and wrapped the conch in plastic wrap.

Boil method:

The next method, which I used to make this roast conch recipe, is to boil the conch.

Put the conch to simmer in a large pot of salted water for an hour.

Adding aromatics is a plus like garlic or onions. Scotch bonnet peppers, oregano, thyme can also be used.

Please note that with this method, expect the conch to get stiffer as it gets into the hot water, but will soften as it boils away.

Split method:

And sometimes you just don't even need to tenderize the conch especially if the recipe you are going to cook, is going to take a while (say in a stew or soup).

Just make sure that the pieces are uniform. For the fat pieces, you can easily butterfly (split it) so that it's thinner.

Pounded Conch Meat

Ways to cook conch

Different ways to cook conch:

Cracked Conch
Stewed conch
Curry Conch
Steam Conch
Conch Salad
Conch Fritters
Conch soup