Stringy seaweed

June 28, 2007 2:49 PM

What is the stringy seaweed in seaweed salad?

and where can I buy it in large quantities for little money?
It is very expensive at the grocery store ($7/lb).
It is "wet" from the store, but I would like to be large quantities of it dry and then make my own as needed.

posted by allelopath to food & drink (14 comments total)

Is it stringy and thin like hair, or is it stringy as in flat and long?
posted by nakedsushi at 3:14 PM on June 28, 2007

like hair, but not as fine. not flat.
posted by allelopath at 3:32 PM on June 28, 2007

Could be hijiki.
posted by jadepearl at 3:57 PM on June 28, 2007

Hijiki is usually simmered. Is is wakame?
posted by donovan at 4:28 PM on June 28, 2007

by "simmered", do you mean it is served hot?

The salad I'm talking about is served cold (though the seaweed could have been cooked then chilled). It also has sesame oil and rice wine or rice vinegar.

The wakame looks a little thicker than what I am looking for, though it is difficult to tell as there is little context in the photo.
posted by allelopath at 4:38 PM on June 28, 2007

Try searching Google images for "wakame seaweed salad."
posted by mingshan at 4:52 PM on June 28, 2007

I'd love to know this as well.

It's definitely not hijiki. I don't think it's wakame, or if it is it's been highly processed. Dried wakame often comes in sheets, and is what you usually get in miso soup.
posted by mkultra at 5:13 PM on June 28, 2007

wakame is definitely what I get in the sushi place we go. Mmm. I wish I knew what those lemony strips they serve with it is.

I have never seen seaweed salad with anything but wakame.
posted by mckenney at 5:19 PM on June 28, 2007

I think it's probably arame you're looking for (scroll down for a picture of the dried stuff). Long, stringy, delicious.
posted by ourobouros at 5:41 PM on June 28, 2007

It might be mozuku, especially if there's a taste of sweet vinegar tinged with salt. (Wikipedia entry.)
posted by jeffmshaw at 5:48 PM on June 28, 2007

Wakame, and there's also agar in it often. The transparent crinkly stuff is agar. I have never been able to make good seaweed salad myself, once forgetting to rinse the wakame first. Salty!!! I have to stock up whenever I go to Ranch 99. They sell it frozen.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 6:31 PM on June 28, 2007

Stringy and gelatinous with a bit of crunch to it? I think I know what you're talking about - it looks like this? I've found it to be the standard seaweed salad offering at most grocery store sushi counters; a little scoop of it in a flat plastic container, a sweet and vinegary dressing with sesame, and it seems very expensive for the amount you get.

I saw one of the sushi counterpeople prepping it once and all she was doing was pulling it out of large, sealed plastic bags (like, hmm, restaurant supply I guess - I did a GIS and I can't say for sure this is the exact stuff but this is pretty much like what I'm talking about), already wet and mixed, and repackaging it into the little containers.

So I don't know if you can get it premixed dry, but looks like you can get it wet, in bulk. Or you could try and reconstruct the recipe from the ingredients list: it's visible on the bag in that picture. They call it wakame, but whenever I've tried to find it dry for the same purpose (making this salad), they never have anything labelled wakame at the store that looks like that salad does.
posted by Melinika at 10:35 PM on June 28, 2007

Melinika: that might be it. It is not cheaper though. As I said, its $7 / lb at the grocers. The price the link you show is $9.50 / lib.
posted by allelopath at 5:40 AM on June 29, 2007

allelopath - could you possibly find a link to a picture? As we've seen just here in this thread - there are lots of options of seaweed to add into salads. A price reference to your local grocer isn't particularly helpful I'm afraid.
posted by gomichild at 9:57 AM on June 29, 2007