Look closely at the Japanese section of any good supermarket and you will find seaweeds in many forms: wrapped around sushi, topping salty rice crackers, tossed with other ingredients and made into a crunchy salad, rolled into glossy, greenish-black sheets - plain or flavoured, and shredded and mixed with sesame seeds and spices for sprinkling over rice or noodles.
One variety - agar agar - has setting properties similar to those of gelatine, and is used in many Asian desserts. It is the secret behind the 'warm gelatine' craze popularised by Spanish Michelin three-star chef, Ferran Adria - other types of gelatine melt when warm but agar agar stays solid.
Seaweed is a good source of protein, iodine, fibre and many essential vitamins and minerals. It is used in pill form as dietary and nutritional supplements, or ground into natural, organic fertilisers. A Japanese scientist's observation that kombu (a giant sea kelp) brought out the taste of savoury foods led to the discovery of natural flavour enhancer glutamate, which led to the development of monosodium glutamate.
But it is not only the Japanese who eat seaweed. This easy seaweed soup takes less than 15 minutes to make. Marinate thinly sliced pork in soy sauce, rice wine, salt, sugar, pepper, sesame oil and a small amount of cornstarch. Take a few sheets of unseasoned seaweed. Toast each sheet by holding it by the edges and moving it back and forth across the flame of a gas burner, about 8cm above the flame. Move it constantly so the seaweed doesn't burn but has a nice, toasty smell. Tear the seaweed into large, rough pieces. Heat a little oil in a soup pan and add some shredded ginger. Cook the ginger until fragrant then add chicken broth (if using Swanson's, use half broth and half water). When the broth boils, lower the heat and add the pork, some frozen green peas and the toasted seaweed. Simmer until the pork is cooked then sprinkle with chopped spring onions and drizzle with sesame oil. You can also replace the pork with soft beancurd.
For Japanese cold noodles, boil buckwheat noodles until tender and 'shock' them in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Toss the drained noodles with soy sauce, sesame oil, wasabi paste, minced spring onions, toasted sesame seeds, and fine shreds of dried, flavoured seaweed (use scissors to cut it up). This is especially good with thinly sliced seared tuna.
