About the Recipe
I am not a food campaigner - but really, you should eat more seaweed! Not only is it brimming with minerals and vitamins but it is also good for the planet - seaweeds grow very quickly, absorbing greenhouse gases and producing oxygen. Not only that, seaweed doesn't require much in the way of preparation to eat it. And it gets even better, you can make this dish with the leftover konbu seaweed and shiitake mushrooms you have used to make up dashi stock. Along with nori in sheet form and hijiki, this dish is one of the most popular ways of consuming seaweed in Japan. Once you've made your tsukudani, it will keep for up to 2 weeks in the fridge.
Ingredients
100g used konbu (wet weight, leftovers from making japanese stock)
3 wet shiitake (leftover from making japanese stock)
400ml water
1 tbsp vinegar
30g brown sugar
0.5 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp soy sauce
0.5 tsp toasted sesame seed
Preparation
finely slice the shiitake mushroom
finely slice the konbu
put the water & vinegar in a saucepan & bring to the boil
add the konbu and cook for 5 mins before draining
put the kelp back in the saucepan
add the shiitake, sugar, mirin and soy sauce and simmer over a medium heat for about 8 mins stirring occasionally or until the liquid has almost gone
your tsukudani is now ready to serve - just sprinkle with the sesame and serve as a side dish with rice