Hijiki

Hijiki

What it is

It is not black on the rock: living hijiki is olive brown, and the colour arrives after hours of steaming or boiling before it is dried, which is also the step that makes the wiry strands chewable at all. That processing is why it is never sold fresh outside the harvest villages themselves.

In the kitchen

Soak twenty to thirty minutes in plenty of cold water and throw that water away — it carries off the harshness and a good part of the inorganic arsenic the weed concentrates. It swells four to five times, so 20 g dry is a dish for four.

Goes with

Carrot Soy sauce Hon-mirin Toasted sesame oil Edamame Rice Chicken Sesame

Same species

Moshio seaweed salt

In season alongside

Belon flat oyster Brown shrimp Clam Cockle Lobster coral Scallop coral

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