Eating Seaweed

Recently we went to the beach - it was a very quick visit, just an overnighter. We stayed with my brother and he suggested a quick walk on the beach to take Jack the Russell for a walk, and then to pick up a coffee afterwards. There was heaps of seaweed on the beach, which he said was unusual. I was telling him about how great it is for the garden, and for eating, and that I'd recently seen a recipe for a foraged seaweed condiment. I don't know much about seaweed, but I don't think there's any that are unedible - maybe some just taste better than others. This one is a small leafed seaweed and it tasted okay so I picked up some of the fresher, greener looking bits. Most of the seaweed was a darker colour, so I assumed it was deader than the pale green seaweed. The darker seaweed is the one you would collect for use in the garden. I didn't have a bag, so I only collected a small amount, mainly to make Gomasio which I'd never heard of until I saw it on a Milkwood face book post. Watch the video here

We did chop a little bit of this fresh seaweed into our breakfast mushrooms after we got back from our walk. It had a very mild flavour, certainly not as strong as it smelled and I really could've put more into the mushrooms.

I brought the seaweed home , washed and dried it for about 3 days and then turned it into Gomasio.  Basically it's equal parts of dried seaweed and toasted sesame seeds ground up and mixed together. I also added some salt to mine.

A couple of pieces of the fresh seaweed. 

This is not the first time I've foraged seaweed, but certainly the first time I've foraged for eating! Using seaweed in the garden, either to make a seaweed tea or put into the compost, or even put directly on the garden as mulch, you don't need to wash the seaweed, I only washed it because I was going to eat it.

Our soil in Australia tends to be deficient in iodine, therefore our food is deficient, so it's always a good idea to add seaweed to our diet. I usually have Dulse flakes mixed in with my celtic sea salt, so then it goes in everything I cook - both sweet and savoury. When cooking stews or bone broth, I usually add a little extra dulse flakes.

On the Milkwood video, Kirsten mentioned a white powder that might grow on the dried seaweed and that its called manite, which is a combination of sugars and salts and that it's close to a natural form of MSG so is a Umami flavour. I'm glad that she mentioned it, because mine had it and I may have been concerned otherwise.

Dried Seaweed and you can see the manite on it.

I crushed the dried Seaweed in the thermomix to get a measurement of amount. I had half a cup of dried crushed seaweed, so then toasted half a cup of sesame seeds. Then added them to the thermomix with the seaweed and 1 teaspoon salt.

I've added it to most meals since making it - it smells devine and gives a really nice flavour to food. I reckon it'll be something I make as often as I can forage seaweed.