From soups to cheese: what seaweed can bring to the dinner table

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CNN —

You may have come across it wrapped around rice and fish at a sushi restaurant, but when it comes to choosing what to spread on your toast in the morning, seaweed does not usually spring to mind.

Seaweed has long been popular in Asia, which is responsible for 98% of the annual 35 million metric tons of it sold worldwide, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. However, a new culinary wave is seeing Western chefs experiment more with the ingredient, adding it to soups and smoothies.

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One reason it is becoming increasingly popular is thanks to its green credentials. According to the Seaweed Manifesto, a UN report, cultivating the algae could be a way to capture and store planet-heating carbon dioxide. And because growing seaweed doesn’t need land or require irrigation, it could be more sustainable than traditional agriculture.

It can improve your health too. Known as a superfood, this sea vegetable is high in protein, amino acids, vitamins and essential minerals such as iron and calcium.

As the algae trend starts to bloom globally, here are some of the ways you can bring seaweed to your kitchen.

Seaweed jam

If you’re looking to take your breakfast ideas in a new direction, then seaweed could be the way to go. Miyeok, also known as “wakame,” is a variant of the algaefound in the colder waters of the North Pacific Ocean.

Seaweed is one of the only vegan products sourced from the sea, making it suitable for most diets. Fabrice Picard/Agence VU/Redux

When simmered with soy sauce, garlic, sugar and rice wine vinegar, the mixture reduces to a sticky, spreadable jam. It can be used as a condiment with seafood such as scallops, mixed with butter to fry with other proteins or simply spread on your toast as a snack.

Seaweed has long been a common ingredient in Korean cuisine. Chef Jun Lee, who runs a two-Michelin star restaurant in Seoul, called Soigné, often uses sea vegetables as a part of his meals.

“[Seaweed] can create a new category with unique flavors and textures that land vegetables can never deliver,” says Lee.

“It’s certainly one of the ‘herbs’ of the sea that can’t be overlooked in Korea’s vegetarian culture,” he adds.

Cheese and butter

Another innovative use of the sea vegetable that really shows off its versatility is seaweed cheese and butter. In cooperation with Guernsey Dairy, the UK-based Seaweed Food Company has experimented with using algae in dairy products.

Naomi Tustin, the company’s founder, explains that it added dulse, a long, red algae from the North Atlantic, and sea lettuce to cheese, and left it to mature for three months.

“It’s been quite popular, so we’ve now gone on to [produce] our second batch of 30 kilos. Seaweed is a flavor enhancer, so you find that the cheese is cheesier,” she says.

In Guernsey, seaweed was used as a food source during German occupation in the 1940s when food supplies were low.

The company has done the same with butter, which can be simply spread on toast or used in dishes such as scrambled eggs. All these recipes and more will be included in the company’s book “Vraic,” due to be released in October, which will also detail the history of seaweed as a food source.

The opportunities are endless. Tustin is most excited about a new recipe that incorporates sea spaghetti in onion bhajis. She believes that these inventive dishes will bust people’s misconceptions of seaweed as “slimy and a bit smelly.”

(source: CNN)