What's your favorite brand of nori seaweed and what are your favorite things to do with it?

January 5, 2010 5:17 PM

SeaweedFilter: What's your favorite brand of nori seaweed? What's your favorite thing to do with it?

I went to the Gyu-Kaku chain of Japanese BBQ restaurants a few months ago, where I discovered that they serve an appetizer of very crisp black nori sheets with cream cheese. This is *amazing*, however we recently discovered that not all nori is created equal, and we have 98 sheets of slightly chewy nori at home that's all but useless for this purpose. Which brands of nori are crisp and crunchy and salty and delicious, practically without doing anything to them?

posted by sdis to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

I think you can toast your existing nori to make it crispy. There are other methods, I think, if you don't want to use the oven.
posted by cabingirl at 5:21 PM on January 5, 2010

If your nori is purple not green, it hasn't been toasted yet. You can toast the sheets by waving them very carefully over a gas flame until they turn from purple to green. Then brush them very lightly with sesame oil and sprinkle with salt.

I don't know where you are located but in the USA I like the Eden brand, which is a favorite of the crunchy-granola set, best.
posted by mneekadon at 5:28 PM on January 5, 2010

Oh, and there are lots of brands of pre-toasted, pre-cut nori in big packages filled with little snack-serving-sized envelopes. This stuff comes in flavors like teriyaki. You eat it like potato chips (or I do anyway). I think most of those are from Korea. The sheer amount of packaging waste on those things is a little disturbing to me, but most of them taste pretty good.

I also like to take a bowl of plain rice and scoop up bite-size mouthfuls inside the sheets, or crumple them on top.
posted by mneekadon at 5:34 PM on January 5, 2010

I can never remember what brands I like, but I was told by a Japanese friend to look at the packaging for a code to its quality -- the best have a gold seal, or gold writing, and then there's silver and other colors below it. I've had pretty good results following that system.

But for any brand, I like Mark Bittman's crispy nori chip recipe.
posted by BlahLaLa at 5:37 PM on January 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

Eden
posted by flummox at 6:49 PM on January 5, 2010

yum! I live in Korea where an entire supermarket aisle is devoted to nori. The other posters are right-- toast your nori. I eat plain snack packs of them like potato chips.

I also buy bags of "shredded" nori and use it on everything. Recipe: toast some nori, as described in Mark Bittman's recipe, then cut it into .5 x 2 inch pieces with scissors. Toss with a little bit of oil (sesame or olive, maybe), some good salt (coarse sea salt is good), and lots of toasted sesame seeds. I eat this stuff by itself for a snack, but it's also a great toppings for eggs, noodles, and salads. And I put a thick layer of it in sandwiches (like with some quick-pickled cucumbers, lettuce, and avocado). Use your imagination-- nori improves almost anything. It's just easier when its cut up into bite-size pieces.
posted by acidic at 7:29 PM on January 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I tried toasting my nori but it just seems to wilt a little bit and get less crispy. Am I doing something wrong?
posted by sdis at 12:41 AM on January 6, 2010

Nori is almost identical to Welsh laver, which is made into laverbread by boiling it down to a thick paste, combining 2 parts laver paste with one part oatmeal, and frying in small patties, usually with bacon or cockles. It tastes significantly more ocean-y than plain nori, but as far as I'm concerned it's just as delicious.
posted by chairmanroflmao at 1:11 AM on January 6, 2010