Mozuku ✦

Mozuku

What it is

Nearly all the mozuku eaten in Japan is farmed off Okinawa, on nets seeded in autumn and cut between April and June. Up to a third of its dry weight is fucoidan, the sulphated sugar responsible for the slipperiness — one of the few sea vegetables bought for texture rather than flavour.

In the kitchen

It arrives packed in salt or brine: rinse in several changes of cold water for a minute or two, no longer, or the strands go limp. Dress it just before serving with rice vinegar cut with dashi, never straight vinegar, which shrivels it.

Goes with

Rice vinegar Ginger Cucumber Myoga Shiso Kombu

In season alongside

Albacore Japanese abalone Hake Matjes herring Surf clam Irish moss

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