Recipe: Seaweed Soup

I used to eat big white bags of Dulse as a child in Donegal, and I loved it. Currently, I’m obsessed with Japanese cooking, the benefits of miso and using seaweed. Miso is a fermented product, made from soy bean or barley, and it’s really good for your tummy (think Yakult times a zillion).

Seaweed is just the business: it is stuffed full of vitamins and minerals, and is good for, amongst other things, making your hair shiny and boosting your sexual appetite. I hadn’t a notion what to do with my purchased seaweed until I made miso soup using the fermented paste. I didn’t follow any recipe, because as far as I can tell, you can throw what you like in it – as long as you don’t boil the miso as it is a living food. This is what I put in my last miso soup:

Ingredients

Some fresh ginger, sliced finely

Half an onion, sliced

Some cabbage, shredded

Some Pak Choy, shredded

1 carrot, sliced

Some mixed seaweed

Piece of Kombu

1 teaspoon miso paste

Method

Cook everything, apart from the miso paste and seaweed salad, up in a pot. Bring to the boil, and simmer until the vegetables are just done. Add the seaweed salad just before the end, and add the teaspoon of miso and stir well.

You can add tofu, spring onion, any greens or cruciferous vegetables – anything you like. You will easily find a traditional Japanese recipe online. It’s a cunning way to eat seaweed; today I bought a bag of Dulse bites and could not bear them, although I’ll keep forcing myself until my palate registers.

Now, what I want to know is, where can one pick one’s own seaweed near Dublin? Anyone? It was €3.90 for a little bag of Dulse in Blazing Salads, and I felt a bit silly paying, because this stuff is abundant here, isn’t it?