Simmered Hijiki

Simmered Hijiki

Here's a very traditional Japanese side dish that uses a seaweed common in East Asia but (as far as I know) nowhere else - it's called hijiki. You can buy hijiki in most Japanese and Chinese food stores, as well as health food shops, in its dried form. As with other seaweeds, there's a lot to like about hijiki nutritionally - it's high in magnesium, iron, calcium and iodine and is full of dietary fibre. I should point out that it does also contain traces of arsenic but you would need to it in very large quantities for it to be harmful to your health!

This dish is vegetarian friendly but it does contain dashi stock, so if you wish to make it vegan friendly, you will need to produce your own vegan dashi stock - if you want a recipe for that, just click vegan stock. There's also a Youtube video tutorial vegan stock, if you want to take a look. As for simmered hijiki, you can find the written recipe as below and the Youtube tutorial at Simmered Hijiki. This would make a healthful lunch paired with a bowl of rice and miso soup!

Happy cooking! Kurumi XXXX.

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ingredients: 2 servings as a side dish

1 packet of dried hijiki seaweed (15g)

1/2 abura-age (fried thin tofu) sheet

25g carrot

200ml japanese dashi stock

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp mirin

1 tsp veg oil

3 mangetoutes for garnishing (optional)

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how to:

soak the hijiki in water for 20 mins, then discard the water and rinse the hijiki

blanch the mangetoute in boiling water for 1 min

shred the mangetoute, carrot & abura-age finely

heat the oil in a saucepan and stir-fry the hijiki, abura-age & carrot for 30 secs

add the dashi stock, sugar, soy sauce & mirin and bring to the boil

simmer over a medium heat with the lid on for 10 mins and another 5-8 mins with the lid off until almost all the liquid has evaporated

your simmered hijiki is now ready to serve. garnish each serving with a few shreed of mangetoute

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SvCbcj1ak

Simmered Hijiki