Seaweed Salad

6 min readSep 4, 2023

….My mother’s recipes have a very mild taste with just a few ingredients. This recipe is one of my mother’s recipes. Have you ever come across a recipe like this? When my husband eats this dish, he often says, “It’s so refreshing, like tasting the sea.” Common ingredients that are not overpowering harmonize with each other to create a refreshing flavor. Various types of seaweed are used in this dish, along with squid, shrimp, and oranges. So, it’s nothing like the green stuff you might be imagining. This dish is renowned for its unique flavor and serves as a vital source of nutrition in my mother’s cuisine. Furthermore, the ingredients, which were initially quite simple, were limited to what was locally available during that time. That’s why it seems like, in the old days, regional dishes were prevalent. I miss the taste; it may be somewhat simple, but my mom’s recipe, which is always satisfying no matter when I eat it, is precious to me. I can’t replicate the roughly chopped ingredients, but the taste and longing overflow from the plate. I miss my mom!!

Servings: 4

Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

15 g of dried seaweed (rehydrated weight: 200g) soaked in cold water for 30 minutes

2. 5 g of dried Irish moss soaked in cold water for 30 minutes

3. 1 cucumber, thinly sliced

4. 200g squid, parboiled and thinly sliced

5. 10 shrimps, shell removed, parboiled, and then cut in half

6. 2 oranges, peeled (outside and inside)

7. 2 tbsp sake

For sauce:

4 tbsp vinegar
4 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp garlic, minced
2-3 tbsp Meyer lemon juice
2 tbsp water
2 tsp sea salt

Cooking Instructions:

Combine the vinegar, lemon juice, sugar, garlic, water, and sea salt in a bowl, and mix well. Refrigerate it.

2. Place the dried seaweed in a bowl of cold water and soak it for 30 minutes until it’s rehydrated. Then, strain it using a strainer. The dried Irish moss rehydrates using the same method.

3. Meanwhile, heat a pot over medium heat and add 1000 ml of water, 1 tbsp of sake, and the prawns to the pot.

4. Once the surface of the prawns turns pink, turn off the heat, cover the pot with a lid, and let it sit for 30 minutes. Then remove them (they will be tender and flavorful).

5. Heat another pot over medium heat, and add 1000 ml of water and 1 tbsp of sake to it. Place the squid into the pot and parboil for 1–2 minutes. Then, transfer it to a tray and allow it to cool down.