This deep green sea vegetable is a standard addition to the miso soup eaten with many (most?) Japanese meals, whether it's breakfast, lunch or dinner. I've had some delicious miso soup, but I've also been served a lot of miso soup I did not enjoy. But good soup or bad soup, I always like the wakame. One of my favorite Japanese salads is a combination of wakame, thinly sliced cucumber, and seafood with a sweet vinegary dressing.
Recently I traveled to Naruto on the Southern tip of Shikou to see the whirlpools there. One of the local food specialties in that area is wakame. In a souvenir shop they had tasting samples of wakame simply dressed with ponzu, a combination of sour citrus and soy sauce. It was so delicious that I bought a big pack of dried wakame to take home with me.
Sour citrus and soy sounds delicious, Cathy. Mmmmm .... some people don't know what they are missing. Japanese food often surprises the Western palate with seemingly unappetising ( to Western thinking ) foods that are made delicious by ingenious combinations of ingredients and preparation.
ReplyDeleteI totally have to agree, I grew up in Ontario, Canada just outside unionville area where its a large Asian community, and my brother in law was Chinese so unlike my classmates who ate "good ol' american" style food, my family and would drive to unionville and visit the local restaurants where I had not a single clue what I was eating... But it was mighty delicious. There was one rule, don't ask what it is until you've tried it once.
DeleteThank you for your post! For the life of me I couldn't figure out what was that delicious green crunch in my miso soup I always order at my favorite restaurant.. I'm looking to start making it at home for my picky eating son who goes bonkers for miso soup!
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