This is Recipe roundup, episode 101. Have you ever watched a cartoon, seen a food that doesn’t actually exist, and then crave it? This past week, I decided to watch some old episodes of Spongebob Squarepants and had that exact experience. If you are familiar with the show, you’ll know that the most popular food in the cartoon is of course the Krabby Patty – a fast food burger presumably made out of some type of seafood served at Spongebob and Squidward’s place of work, the Krusty Krab. 

The denizens of Bikini Bottom are crazy for Krabby Patties, and there are many episodes that speak to a top secret recipe as the key to their success. Even Squidward’s snobbish palette is no match for the morsel, and he becomes addicted to Krabby Patties in the episode “Just One Bite”.

Krabby Patties deserve their own episode at some point, but today I want to talk about a very specific version. In the Episode “Jellyfish Hunter” Spongebob, who is an avid Jellyfish hunter, shares the delicious combination of putting jellyfish jelly on a krabby patty with some customers. They can’t get enough of it and soon the greedy Mr. Krabs opens a factory to extract the jelly. Though the episode appears to speak to the evils of factory farming and mass production of food, I simply could not get the idea of Jellyfish jelly out of my head. I realized I needed to try to make it. 

Of course, jellyfish do not produce jelly, so I had to make this up completely! When I imagine it, I think I would expect the cartoon jelly to taste like dragonfruit – however, I didn’t have access to that this weekend, so I opted for seedless raspberry jam. We knew we had to give it some type of kick, so I chopped up 2 habaneros, making certain to dispose of the seeds, and mixed it with about half a cup of the jam, With a little splash of water and rice vinegar, I boiled the mixture for about 15 minutes, stirring regularly to prevent any burning or caramelization. Finally I poured it into a jar and let it set in the fridge until it gelled up. 

For the Krabby patty, I opted for a hamburger spiced with Old Bay seasoning. In the future, I hope to come up with an actually seafood based patty, but this did the trick. I put lettuce tomato, pickle, onion and mayonnaise on the sandwich and then of course the lovely jellyfish jelly! IT WAS DELICIOUS. I actually think this might become a semi-regular addition to burgers for me. I also think it might be great to add fresh horseradish to the jellyfish jelly – especially for a seafood patty. I’m sure I’ll update this recipe in the future, but for a first experiment, I’ll claim success!