Shoreline Classic · Battered Abalone
Pāua Fritters
📷 Closely related photo — Photo: Wolfgang K / Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
The shell's swirling blue-green nacre is prized enough for jewellery and inlay work that pāua shell prices have roughly tripled over the past decade, with processors and buyers now competing for shells once treated as waste.
Pāua — a large native abalone — is minced and mixed into a thick batter with egg and breadcrumbs, then fried into a dense, chewy fritter with a distinct briny, iron-rich flavour. Kaikōura's seafood caravans and shopfronts sell them alongside crayfish and blue cod as a cheaper way to try the region's shellfish.
Why it's made this way: Pāua clings to rocks along Kaikōura's exposed coastline in dense enough numbers that hand-gathering it for the table has stayed a normal weekend activity for locals, not just a commercial fishery.
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