Recipe of the Week: Seaweed Salad

I had a vision of me waking up the next day, my lower torso covered in teal metallic scales and my legs transformed into a lovely mermaid's tail after eating this - as I imagine sea vegetables to be mostly what mermaids and mermen eat - I don't think they would eat fish, that would be like cannibalism, like devouring your friends. I had this vision because I made way too much of it and thought it may have had some sort of alchemical transformative effect on me. You see, I liked it so much, I ate it ALL - the whole bowl and that's a lot of kelp! It made my mertummy hurt as I am a land dweller (for now) and not used to it - but if you are like me and you LOVE that bright freon green seaweed salad that you see in delis alongside sushi, make this! It's doesn't turn lime green though - makes me wonder what they do to get that color... hmmm ... anyhoo!

Simple Seaweed Salad - courtesy of Mark Bittman
Yield 4 servings Time 20 minutes

The easiest way to produce this is to buy a small package of mixed seaweeds and proceed from there. But once you get more familiar with seaweed, you can use wakame, kelp, hijiki, or others, alone or in any combination you like. (I used kelp and wakame - I liked the kelp the best)

Ingredients
1 ounce assorted dried seaweeds or wakame
1/4 cup minced shallot, scallion, or red onion
2 tablespoons soy sauce, or to taste
1 tablespoon rice wine or other light vinegar, or to taste
1 tablespoon mirin or 1 teaspoon sugar, or to taste
1/2 tablespoon dark sesame oil, or to taste
Pinch cayenne, or to taste
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds, optional

1. Rinse the seaweed once and soak it in at least 10 times its volume of water. When tender, about 5 minutes later, drain and gently squeeze the mixture to remove excess water. Pick through the seaweed to sort out any hard bits (there may be none) and chop or cut up (you may find it easier to use scissors) if the pieces are large. Put in a bowl.

2. Toss with the shallot, soy sauce, vinegar, mirin, sesame oil, cayenne, and salt. Taste and add salt or other seasonings as necessary. Serve garnished with the sesame seeds.