seaweed

Seaweed: Hijiki, wakame, kombu, nori, kanten

maki — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:23:41 +0100

Next up in the OJFTMHYLW list is seaweed. But..why not call it sea vegetables? Weed sounds so unappetizing, so unwanted. Yet, seaweed is a terrific food.

There are many kinds of seaweed commonly consumed in Japan, and all are quite low in calories, contain many minerals, and are high in fiber. The only problem for a lot of people is that seaweed has a distinctive texture and flavor.

Wakame

Wakame, which often appears in salads, as garnish for sashimi, and in miso soup, has a rather slimy texture which just gets more slimy the longer it's soaked. If you can get used to this all the better of course. But if not, there are ways to get around this. First, try chopping it up very finely and sneaking it into food. Second, if you put it into soup (like for miso soup) the sliminess, which is actually a form of fiber, will melt into the liquid and be less noticeable. Also, sautéing in oil, or mixing with an acid like vinegar, counteracts the sliminess.

Kombu or Konbu

Kombu seaweed is most commonly used to make dashi stock, but it can also be eaten. The best way to eat kombu is to chop it up very finely unless you develop a liking for the leathery texture. You can also find kombu-cha, kombu tea, which is dried, salted and flavored pieces of kombu steeped in water.

Nori

Nori may be the most familiar seaweed since it's used as a wrapper for sushi. It's usually not cooked, though there are traditional recipes calling for softened nori. (Some people like a sort of soft nori paste to eat with rice...it is sort of like a Japanese version of Marmite.)

Kanten

Kanten, or agar-agar, is a coagulant extracted from a seaweed called amakusa. It's used like gelatin, but it has slightly different coagulation properties, and is all-vegetable of course.

Hijiki

Then there is hijiki, which may be the most versatile seaweed of all. It's also extremely high in fiber - about 40% of it in dried form is fiber. Hijiki is not commonly seen on the menus of Japanese restaurants since it's used mostly for homely home cooking. It comes in dried form, as do most other seaweeds (except for salted 'fresh' wakame). It's usually soaked for about an hour beforehand, then rinsed, before use, If you're in a hurry though you can blanch it for a couple of minutes in boiling water, which hydrates it quite fast. Hijiki when reconstituted swells to about 5 times its original weight, so don't use too much! A serving is usually 1 or two tablespoons worth at most.

Hijiki comes in two forms mostly: regular hijiki, which is rather twig-like in dried form, and me hijiki, small buds of hijiki that looks like black tea in dried form. Once regular hijiki is reconstituted, it looks like long black noodles. Star Trek fans may see a remarkable similarity to gagh. However hijiki does not move on your plate or have feet.

The traditional way to cook hijiki is to stew it in dashi stock flavored with soy sauce and often sugar, together with vegetables like carrot or lotus root, or fried tofu (aburaage). Since it's fairly neutral in flavor, it can be used in salads, or stir fries and such.

Hijiki safety concerns

There is just one caveat about hijiki. Four countries have issued warnings, but no outright bans, for hijiki, citing its more than accepted levels of inorganic arsenic. It should be noted that the initial tests on hijiki which lead to those warnings in the UK among other places was based on testing the dried, un-soaked hijiki - and you never eat hijiki that way. Soaking reduces the amount of trace arsenic by 1/7th; rinsing and cooking it in liquid further reduces it. The report here (Japanese) by the Tokyo Health and Welfare Department states that as long as a person weighing 50kg (about 110lb) does not eat more than 5 servings of hijiki of 5g dry weight per serving (which swells up to a lot more than that when soaked) that it is perfectly safe, even for pregnant women.

In a nutshell, when it's prepared properly (soaked, rinsed then stewed, and eaten with vegetables) I don't believe there is much to worry about. To me the many benefits of hijiki and other seaweed far outweigh the drawbacks. If I were the UK government, I'd be issuing dire health warning about things like blood pudding, but that wouldn't be politically popular! Some weird foreign seaweed is a much easier target. (And I do like blood pudding, once in a great while.)

In any case you should not consume large quantities of this or any other food (it's actually very hard, if not impossible, to eat a huge amount of hijiki) and it's often recommended to eat it with vegetables which may help to eliminate the inorganic arsenic from the body efficiently. Pre-soaking it and rinsing it before eating, which is the traditional way to prepare it, eliminates much of the arsenic content also.

Recipe: Hijiki and vegetable "Napolitan"

This is a non-traditional way of cooking hijiki, though note that the hijiki is still soaked, rinsed and stewed and eaten with vegetables. It adds fiber, flavor and interesting color to a pasta dish that's inspired by "Spaghetti Napolitan", a common item served in Japanese family-style restaurants and such, that has nothing at all as far as I can tell with Naples. It has tons of vegetables and a little bit of ham, which can be left out to make this a vegetarian/vegan dish.

This yields 4 generous and very filling servings.

100g / 3.5 oz dried whole wheat or regular spaghetti
A small handful (about 5g) regular hijiki
1 red pepper
1 green or yellow pepper
1 carrot
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
120g / 4 oz proscuitto crudo (raw ham like proscuitto di parma)
1 400g / 1lb (small) can of crushed tomatoes
2 Tbs. tomato paste
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbs. olive oil
Salt and pepper

Soak the hijiki, drain and rinse following the directions above.

Heat up a pot of water to boil the pasta.

Slice the vegetables thinly. Chop the garlic finely. Cut the ham into strips.

While you boil the pasta, heat up a sauté pan or wok. Put in the can of tomatoes and the vegetables. Simmer until the vegetables are soft and the moisture is almost gone. Add the oil and ham and hijiki and sauté briefly. Add the tomato paste and Worcestershire sauce. Season if needed with salt and pepper.

Drain the pasta and add to the pan, stir around to coat the strands well. Serve immediately, optionally topped with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Recipe: Seaweed and chirimenjako furikake

Don't just settle for commercial furikake that's often loaded with MSG and other dubious ingredients. Furikake is quite easy to make at home, with only the things you want in it.

This furikake, which is just bursting with umami, can be made with any seaweed you like, or a mixture. Be sure to chop up the seaweed finely. This is most easily accomplished in a food processor, but you can chop by hand too. This one has a mixture of me-hikiji and nori. Chirimenjako is small, salted whole fish - you can find this or something similar in most Japanese, Korean or Chinese groceries. You can leave it out if tiny whole fish bother you.

About 3-4 Tbs. of reconstituted, rinsed and drained me-hijiki, wakame, kombu etc.
2 sheets of dried nori, well shredded
3 Tbs. of chirimenjako
A large handful of bonito flakes
3 Tbs. soy sauce
1 Tbs. sesame seeds
Red pepper flakes, or seven ingredient pepper powder ( shichimi or nanami tohgarashi
Optional: 1 Tbs. very finely chopped orange or yuzu zest

Chop the seaweed up finely. (If using me-hijiki you don't need to do much chopping.)

Put the moist seaweed and the chirimenjako in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Stir around until it's dried out quite a bit and is getting a bit crispy but not burnt. Add the soy sauce, the bonito flakes, and the shredded nori, and continue stirring until it's almost dry. Add the sesame seeds, citrus rind and red pepper, and stir until the sesame seeds are popping. Take off the heat. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and try to use it up within a week.

A week of miso soup, day 2: Potato and wakame seaweed

maki — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 17:38:09 +0200

Potato and wakame seaweed is a classic combination, but one that you rarely if ever see on a restaurant menu. I think the reason for this is that restaurants generally cook a huge pot of miso soup in advance, and if you keep simmering potato, it will just fall apart. In any case potato-wakame is one of my favorite miso soups, and depending on the amount of potato you put in, it can be quite filling. I really like it for breakfast, sometimes just on its own.

Wakame is a very versatile seaweed that can be used in salads or soups.You'll see it often as a garnish for sashimi. It's sold in two forms - preserved in salt, or dehydrated. For occasional use, I would recommend dehydrated wakame (often labeled fueru wakame), which is a lot easier to use than the salted kind. Just be careful not to use too much - a little really goes a long way.

Note: if you happen to have some wakame garnish from a takeout sashimi, you can use that for the soup provided that it hasn't been sitting next to raw fish for an extended period. A lot of people find cooked wakame easier to eat than wakame in salads and garnishes. So, if you find yourself always throwing away the garnish, just set it aside as soon as you get your sashimi and put it in the fridge to make a soup. Or - make a soup to accompany your meal!

Potato and wakame seasweed miso soup (jagaimo to wakame no misoshiru

4 cups of dashi stock
2 medium potatoes
1 Tbs. dehydrated wakame
1/4 to 1/3 cup white miso

Prepare the dashi stock following the instructions for Day 1.

Peel the potatoes and cut into small pieces. Put in the dashi stock, and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10 to 15 minutes depending on how big your pieces are.

When the potatoes are done, add the 1 tablespoon of dried wakame and stir. It will expand very quickly. Simmer for an additional 3-5 minutes.

Add the miso to the soup. Serve immediately.

Japanese basics: miso and miso soup

maki — Sun, 07 Dec 2003 12:02:11 +0100

[Update:] See an updated miso soup how-to with step by step photos.

The health benefits of miso, or fermented soybean paste, have been studied and touted a lot in the last few years. Soy bean products like tofu, natto (fermented soy beans) and miso are all supposed to help to prevent breast cancer. The reason I like miso soup though is simply because it's good. Like rice, miso soup is an integral part of Japanese food culture.

Miso paste can be used for many other things besides soup. Thin it out a bit with some sake, soy sauce and a bit of sugar to make a great marinade or brush-on sauce for meat, fish and even vegetables. You can also completely encase vegetables such as cucumber and eggplant (aubergine) - the small Japanese or Chinese kind, not the big Italian kind - in miso for a day or so in the refrigerator, to make delicious miso zuke - a sort of miso marinade. You can treat meat, such as pork filet, or fish in this manner too, but I like it best with vegetables.

There are two major types of miso: red and white. Red is a dark reddish brown, and white is actually a sort of yellow-brown. Red is supposed to be saltier and stronger in flavor, though not all red miso is. White is more popular, and more versatile. There are as many kinds of miso in Japan as there are cheeses in Switzerland, though outside of Japan we only tend to see the major brands.

Miso soup, or misoshiru, is very easy to make once you have basic dashi stock. The key to good miso soup is to add the miso at the end, and not let it come to a rolling boil after that. If you need to re-heat it, do so gently.

Basic Miso Soup

For about 4 servings, you need:

4 cups of basic dashi stock
1/3 - 1/2 cup of miso
gu or extra ingredients (see note below)

Heat up the dashi if it's cooled. Simmer any hard ingredients, such as potatoes or daikon radish until tender.

Add any ingredients that don't need any cooking, such as wakame seaweed or tofu.

Take the miso in a ladle, and add a little bit of the hot stock, Mix the miso and stock together in the ladle with a chopstick until the miso is dissolved. This step ensures that there will be no lumps. (Go easy on the miso amount at first, and taste. If you need to add more you can.)

Dissolve the miso mixture in the soup. Don't let it boil or the flavor will dissipate. Serve immediately.

Here are some easy ingredients combinations, or gu, that you can put in the miso soup:

Cubed tofu and presoaked wakame seaweed cut into small pieces. (A very easy to handle brand of wakame is "Fueru Wakame-chan", available in Japanese or Asian food stores. It comes in precut form in little pouches. Wakame can also be used in seaweed salad. Soak it briefly before using - oversoaking makes it slimy.
Hint: to cube tofu so that it doesn't fall apart, cut it up on a wet chopping board and slide it in the pan slowly, or else cut it up on the palm of your hand.
Cubed potatoes (simmered in the soup until tender) and wakame. This is one of my favorites in the cold months.
Julienned daikon radish, simmered until tender.
Julienned cabbage, simmered until tender.
Sliced button or shiitake mushrooms, or canned nameko mushrooms., with tofu and some chopped green onion added just before serving.

There are many, many other combinations. Try out your own and see what happens.