Mixed in with seaweed

I was watching Bill Green's Maine a month or so ago when I saw a story about a gentleman from Maine that was harvesting seaweed from the ocean, cutting it into thin strips, boiling and packaging it for sale as frozen kelp noodles. I was immediately intrigued and, as usual, waited several weeks to act on it.

I went to Browne Trading Company in Portland and picked up four 4oz frozen packages of kelp noodles. All you need to do is thaw and rinse and then it is ready to be eaten.

My first attempt at using the kelp noodles was to mix them in with spaghetti. In hindsight, I wish I'd used something thicker like fettucine so that it matched up better size and texture-wise. After letting the noodles thaw for a couple of days in the refrigerator, I rinsed them off in a strainer. They felt like al dente pasta noodles and had a great color.


Unfortunately, my kids were not in the experimental mood and wanted nothing to do with the seaweed so I didn't have the option of adding the kelp to the pot of cooking pasta in order to heat it up. Instead, I put the strainer full of kelp noodles in the sink and strained my spaghetti in another strainer over it, letting the hot pasta water warm the seaweed up a little.

I made the kids their usual pasta bowls (one with tomato sauce and one with olive oil, both with parmesan shavings) and then made myself a bowl of spaghetti mixed with the seaweed.


Like I said, it would have been better mixed in to some fettucine (everything tastes great when drowned with alfredo sauce!), but it was pretty good just the same. They were slightly firmer than al dente pasta, but they were clearly vegetable to the mouth. You'd never be able to fool anyone into thinking they were spinach-flavored pasta once they tried it. I think I'll try it on the kids mixed with some spinach fettucine noodles next time, though. Just getting them into trying that first bite is usually half the battle.

My second experiment came this weekend, and this time I even got my oldest to eat it as her love of frittata overwhelmed her fear of seaweed. I love omelettes and quiche, but neither of those can be made as easily as the hearty and versatile frittata. I was introduced to these italian omelettes through the America's Test Kitchen PBS show, which is the video branch of Cook's Illustrated.

The key to making a frittata the Cook's Illustrated way is the pan. You need a non-stick pan that can also go under the broiler. The best solution that I've found for this is a 12" cast iron frying pan. While not nearly as non-stick as teflon, a well-seasoned pan will do the trick. Even if your pan is relatively new or not well-seasoned, the worst that will happen is your frittata will have a ragged bottom. No big deal.

All of the CI recipes feature a meat, a vegetable and a cheese with the eggs. Our usual is asparagus, ham and gruyere. They recommend around 3 cups of vegetable and meat to go along with 12 eggs. I probably only had half of that this weekend, but it still came out pretty well. I didn't make a special shopping trip for this, so I just used whatever extra ingredients I could find in my fridge. Normally, you would saute your vegetables for a couple of minutes, then add garlic or shallots until softened and then add your cooked meat just to heat it up. The cheese goes in with the eggs. Since the seaweed was already cooked, I added it with the ham and started with the shallots.

Seaweed Frittata
12" cast iron skillet
12 large eggs
3 tablespoons half-and-half
table salt and ground black pepper
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 shallot, chopped fine
4 oz kelp noodles, chopped fine enough to throw the kids off
4 oz deli ham, chopped into 1/4" squares
6 oz grated monterey jack cheese

1. Adjust your oven rack so that it's 5 or 6 inches from the top heating element and turn the broiler on high. Whisk eggs, half-and-half, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper in a bowl until well combined. Stir in cheese and set bowl aside.

2. Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat until the oil is shimmering. Add shallots and cook around 2 minutes until starting to brown.


3. Add ham and seaweed, stir around for a minute just to warm them up.


4. Pour in egg mixture.


5. Keep working the eggs around with rubber spatula until they have thickened up enough that your spatula leaves a wake on the bottom of the pan.


6. Shake/smooth the eggs out and let them sit undisturbed for 30 seconds to let the bottom set.


7. Slide the skillet under the broiler for 3 or 4 minutes until the frittata is puffed up and nicely browned. Broilers vary in intensity, so keep a close eye on it!


8. Remove from oven and let the frittata sit in the pan for 5 minutes to finish cooking.


9. Loosen frittata from the pan and slide on to a cutting board. Cut into wedges and serve.


My youngest doesn't like eggs usually, so I wasn't surprised that she took a pass, but my older daughter attacked them with zeal and had two wedges. She didn't even mind when I told her that she had been eating the same seaweed that she had refused to try a few days earlier.

I've still got two packages of the kelp noodles left to do something with, but at this point I've got to say that I probably won't buy it again. I think it's a great idea and is palatable enough, but at $16/pound its greatest value is in making asparagus seem cheap. Hopefully, Ocean Approved will find a way to get the price down to a more reasonable $5 or $6 per pound, but until then it's going to be nothing more than a rare novelty in the Raven kitchen.

Comments

[Lisa Belisle]

We've tried adding these into a stir fry on two separate occasions. We found that the seaweed taste was too strong when there were no other noodles. We used soba noodles for one of our attempts, and it was certainly better than the 'no other noodle' version, but I think we still need to do some experimenting.

[Carissa]

I think I'll have to pass on the seaweed. I just don't like the fishy taste and smell (no sushi for me!). But, it's definitely an interesting concept. I'm very impressed with your cooking abilities!