Laverbread
This is one of my favourite condiments in my recipe book. Its based on a Japanese preserve called tsukudani, which comes from Tsukudajima island in Tokyo bay.
Tsukudani refers to the preserving technique of simmering small seafood, seaweed or meat in soy sauce and mirin (fortified rice wine) until it is salty enough not to go bad resulting in the most cheek swellingly umami rich jammy relish.
Traditional variations include small pond smelt, little neck clams, sand lance, locust and caddisfly larva. Yes some sound a bit much, but its the technique we should focus on
If you make Dashi it is a great use for spent kombu, dried anchovies or mushrooms used to make stocks. Reusing products from other places. Its not typical in there western kitchen to haver dried fish or meat around, or an excess of shellfish or locust. So I will just talk about variations using vegetables.
Traditionally it is served cold on hot rice, or used to season soups and stews.
You may have heard of laverbread the welsh seaweed superfood made from laver seaweed, it is deeply savoury from the umami from the seaweed itself, cooked until it becomes a dense gelatinous paste sometime mixed or rolled in oats, it is delicious, briney and rich.
Laver is difficult to come by, unlike asian countries which have created industries around edible seaweed the britons haven’t embraced this incredible resource.
Buying preprepared laver bread is an option however I have found there is often an issue with sand. resulting in a gritty unwelcome crunchy bite.
A simple solution is to use farmed nori seaweed, it is readily available in large and small quantity, clean and ready to use. So making our own laver bread became a possibility from being an expensive logistical sandy nightmare to a condiment of dreams.
I love this stuff, I think mentioned this before..
The key to this is balance. The recipe I will give is using out own homemade soy sauce (made from sourdough bread), miso made from broad beans, and honey. You can make it using the traditional soy sauce, mirin, sake, and dashi I will add a recipe for this at the bottom all those not psycho enough to bother making your own. But at the moorcock inn we did, and that was the taste many of you will have first tried. Soon there will be a recipe for how to make koji, miso, soy style sauces. Rice/barley wines and mirin’s. But that will take a bit, and like everything in fermenting its best not to be in too much of a rush. Bear with me.
Back to balance, you can supplement bought miso paste, soy sauce, the difference will be the salt content, you may want to increase the honey and reduce the soy as it will likely be saltier. So an element of cooking to taste will necessary.
Moorcock Inn Laverbread, aka Yorkshire nori no tsukudani.
50g nori seaweed sheets (the same ones used for sushi rolls)
275g bread miso (sourdough bread soy sauce)
1.5kg water
350g honey
150g broadbean miso (homemade)
Place your nori sheets in a 180 degree oven and cook until the seaweed becomes aromatic and starts to change to a lighter brown, it will also curl and become very brittle. Approx 25 minutes
In a large pot mix together all the other ingredients and bring to the boil.
Turn the heat down to a simmer and crumble the brittle seaweed into the broth. The seaweed will immediately dissolve into the broth. Keep it simmering stirring every 10 minutes until the mixture has become a thick sticky paste.
Check the taste has intensified and the balance of richness, sweetness and saltiness is palatable. If it needed more salt, keep cooking, is too salty add some more honey.
Place in a jar hot and lid straight away.
keep it in the fridge, it will last t least a year and tastes even better after 2 weeks.
Serving suggestions
tsukudani is very good with earthy ingredients, potatoes either boiled or roasted.
Baked celeriac. super nice with roast pumpkin or squash.
As a seasoning to roast brussel sprouts, chestnuts and bacon. Brushed over grilled or poached chicken.
It's really good with boiled eggs and rice.
Roast monkfish, or any fish really.
or as pictured below with roast beef, pumpkin and hemp seed oil.
I often use is as a replacement to gravy or meat sauces with a little virgin oil over the meat.
For an other variations I would recommend using some sliced kombu kelp, or dried shiitake, parasol or ceps if you have them to hand, any dried mushroom will work well. Just substitute the dried ingredient for the nori by weight.
For the store bought version follow the recipe as above using
10 sheets of Nori seaweed
500g dashi broth
75g soy sauce
75g sake
45g mirin.
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