Show  What is it? While seaweed is a culinary staple in Eastern and Celtic cuisines it is becoming popular in the modern kitchen as a sustainable, nourishing food. Seaweed is edible algae, a plant that grows underwater. Some is harvested and sold fresh, but most are dried. One of the most common is nori, which has been chopped, rolled and dried into sheets used to wrap sushi. Wakame, sometimes called sea lettuce, is a green and slightly chewy seaweed and is sold fresh, dried and frozen. Dried kelp, or kombu, is an essential ingredient in Japanese dashi and is found dried in strips. Why do we love it? Packed with nutrients such as vitamins A, B, E and K, and iodine and folate, many seaweeds contain more than their share of glutamic acids, making them buzz with the sense of deliciousness the Japanese call umami. Most dried seaweeds are rehydrated, offering the taste of the sea in every bite, and when fresh or rehydrated, a superbly slippery texture. Get the latest news and updates emailed straight to your inbox. Who uses it? "Australian Indigenous people ate and used seaweed for thousands of years," says Byron Bay chef David Moyle. "From kelp footwear to cooking and eating it, the coastal people made seaweed a big part of their life. It's crazy we don't do more with it." Moyle has cooked kelp with eel to celebrate the Gunditjmara Budj Bim eel culture for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. How do you use it? NORI
WAKAME Wakame can be bought frozen, pickled or dried. Use as a vegetable and add to stir-fries, blanch and serve with oil and lemon juice as you would spinach, or shred and make a cold salad with sesame oil. Roast wakame with a little salt and oil and serve as wakame chips. KOMBU Kelp or kombu is rich in glutamic acid and forms the basis of dashi stock, used to make miso soup and clear broth, along with dried tuna flakes. Use a little dried kelp as a vegan stock cube in soups and stews.
Where do you get it? Supermarkets carry dried and roasted nori sheets, while Japanese grocers such as FujiMart, Prahran (Vic), or Tokyo Mart, Northbridge (NSW), carry wakame and kombu. Tasmanian wakame is sold online at ashmorefoods.com.au. Wakame is one of the major types of edible seaweed. This sea vegetable is widely used in Asian dishes, and is most often served in soups and salads, or as a side dish to seafood. Wild harvested in Australian waters, it is usually farmed in Japan and Korea. Most likely the wakame you'd find at the store comes from one of these two countries. Fast Facts
What Is Wakame?Wakame is a species of sea vegetable, commonly referred to as seaweed, extensively used in Japanese and other Asian cuisines, especially in soups, salads, and snacks, but also as a seasoning. Wakame is deep green in color; it is occasionally referred to as "sea mustard," likely because it resembles mustard greens when cooked, but not because of its mild flavor, which is unlike the peppery vegetable. It's available in two forms: dried, which is most common, and salted. The salted variety is sold refrigerated in a sealed package. Wakame vs. NoriWakame is different from nori, which is the type of dried seaweed used in making sushi. Nori comes in flat, dried sheets, whereas dried wakame usually comes in the form of strips that are somewhat shriveled up, a little bit like raisins from the sea. Dried wakame needs to be soaked before using it, whereas nori is usually toasted before the assemblage of sushi rolls, or onigiri. Wakame UsesWakame needs to be reconstituted before using it. Simply place the seaweed in a bowl and cover it with warm water for a few minutes. It might expand a bit, so you might not need to use a lot of it. Once hydrated and drained, it's added to salads and soups, or chopped, seasoned, and served as a salad. Famous miso soup is often garnished with diced tofu, minced scallions, and small pieces of green seaweed. That seaweed is wakame. How to Cook With WakameAfter rehydrating, it's simply a matter of soaking it in iced water for 5 to 6 minutes, then draining it, and squeezing out the excess water. Another technique is to blanch the wakame, which involves briefly immersing the dried wakame in boiling water, then draining it, and rinsing it with cold water before squeezing it dry. Blanching brings out the bright green color of the wakame, and you'd typically do it if you were using it in a salad as opposed to a soup. Lastly, the dried strips can be ground in a spice grinder and used as a seasoning for salads, soups, fish, or tofu. What Does It Taste Like?Like most sea vegetables, wakame has a briny, salty, umami flavor, with a degree of sweetness as well. Because wakame does come from the sea, it will taste of the sea, or at least evoke those kinds of flavors, but without any fishiness. In terms of its texture, rehydrated wakame has a slightly rubbery, slippery texture, almost squeaky when you bite into it. Dried wakame straight from the bag, also a snack option, resembles a slightly chewy potato chip. Wakame RecipesAlthough not common in Western kitchens, wakame is a very versatile ingredient. Use rehydrated wakame in salads, add it to vegetable soups, or serve it as a side dish to meats and rice dressed with sesame oil and soy sauce. Use the dry ground powder, soy sauce, spring onions, honey, and sesame seeds to marinate meats before grilling. Mix rehydrated chopped wakame into pasta salads and dress with tamari and onion salt.
Where to Buy WakameMost Asian markets will have wakame, but other supermarkets might have wakame in the international aisle, or in a section devoted to sushi, where the sushi rice, soy sauce, and nori are stocked. Another alternative is to find it online. Wakame is most commonly found in small bags in its dried form, but the dry salt-preserved kind will be in the refrigerated section, most likely in an Asian market rather than the common grocery store. StorageDried wakame can be kept sealed in the bag it came in, in a cool, dry, dark place, for up to a year. Once you've rehydrated it, it should be kept refrigerated, where it will last for 3–4 days. You can also store rehydrated wakame in the freezer, where it will keep for a year. Salted (refrigerated) wakame should be kept in the fridge, where it will stay fresh for several weeks, but it's best to check the expiration or sell-by date. What type of seaweed is wakame?Wakame (Undaria pinnatifida) is a species of kelp native to cold, temperate coasts of the northwest Pacific Ocean. As an edible seaweed, it has a subtly sweet, but distinctive and strong flavour and texture. It is most often served in soups and salads.
Can I use nori instead of wakame?Seaweed: Dried wakame is the variety of seaweed traditionally used for miso soup recipes, which comes pre-cut and needs to be soaked in warm water for 10 minutes before using. But you can also chop up sheets of nori in a pinch (the seaweed sheets used to roll sushi), which are more widely-available grocery stores.
Is sushi nori the same as wakame?Wakame is different from nori, which is the type of dried seaweed used in making sushi. Nori comes in flat, dried sheets, whereas dried wakame usually comes in the form of strips that are somewhat shriveled up, a little bit like raisins from the sea.
Is dried seaweed same as kombu?Kombu is simply the Japanese word for dried sea kelp. Kombu/Kelp/Haidai, are large seaweeds (algae) belonging to the brown algae (Phaeophyceae) in the order Laminariales.
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Is dried seaweed the same as wakame?
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