Hi, I'm Kirsten from Milkwood (Permaculture) and
I'm going to show you how to make forage seaweed gomasio. Like this!
HOW TO MAKE FORAGED SEASWEED GOMASIO
This is ulva, it's a sea lettuce.
It's a really delicate seaweed. It's
fantastic to dry and
cook in lots of different ways. It's also really great for salads
It grows on rocky areas at the ends of beaches,
but it naturally gets ripped off and ends up all over the place as you can see.
It's a really delicious seaweed to forage if you can find some of that. We've also got some kelp.
This is a golden kelp.
From where we live.
But all kelps across the world are edible which is fantastic and it's pretty easy to find out what the kelps are
where you live. If you ever struggle with that, go ask your local fishing authorities
they'll be able to tell you and this is really tasty.
If it's a bit too old we can use it in our garden but
we'd still dry that and we use that in our kitchen, for sure. It's delicious.
So, today we're going to gather some of this beautiful sea
STEP 1: GATHER A MIX OF SEA LETTUCE AND KELP lettuce and probably leave the seagrass here, I think.
Sea lettuce and kelp and we're going to gather enough to make a seaweed gomasio.
Which is a really, really delicious
salt, sesame and seaweed sprinkle that we use with pretty much everything in our kitchen. We use it on scrambled eggs.
We use it in soups. We use it in salads. They're the most delicious sprinkles on earth that anyone can make, at home.
When we're foraging for seaweed, it's really, really important to be very mindful of what we're doing. It's a wild resource,
it's part of the ecosystem and there's a whole lot of aspects that we need to be aware of.
We have a few personal principles
and the first one is never take the first one you see.
Of anything, whether it's hawthorn berries wild plums or
seaweed because there is a small chance that that might be the only one on the beach.
They might be the only bit and we much prefer to harvest when there's an abundance rather than taking the tiny bits that we find.
Seaweed is a really important part of the marine ecosystem even after it's been taken off it's holdfast and washed up on the beach.
It's a really crucial food source for lots of the
microbiology that live on beaches as it ferments and breaks down.
It provides all sorts of foods for seabirds and
a lot of the sea bugs and all sorts of things.
When we go foraging seaweed is really important to find a clean place to do it.
Some inner urban places near cities or in
at the head of estuaries that have heavy industry, I've seen, are pretty much a no-go zone for
foraging seaweed because it does take up the heavy metals and it does take up the nutrients of
the water and the inputs around it.
Some places have different regulations about whether seaweed can be harvested just from the beach which is called beach cast seaweed,
so it's technically dead at that point, but it's still good for eating and for your garden and some places, you're
not allowed to harvest any seaweed at all
even if it is on the beach.
It is a good idea to keep an eye on
what's allowable where you are so that you can do the right thing. And if you can't do it where you live,
there's probably somewhere nearby where it's completely okay to do so.
STEP 2: WASH SEAWEED TO GET RID OF THE SAND So once you've got the seaweed at home, you're probably going to need to wash it.
We just fill up a bucket with some clean rainwater and this is mostly to get the sand off,
More than anything you don't need to get the salt. of the foraged seaweed, especially if you're using it in cooking,
salt is fantastic and even if you're using it for your garden, you can still leave the salt on there.
It's actually quite good because it has so many different minerals
and all sorts of interesting things in that other than salt and
apparently the salt content on your seaweed is very very small surprisingly
And so it doesn't actually affect your garden soil, which is good.
STEP 3: HANG SEAWEED TO DRY So we just hang our seaweed
up.
Simple as that.
And,
You want to dry seaweed until it's crispy crunchy dry. So it either snaps off or
maybe it doesn't need to snap off, but you can just feel it's got no more moisture in it,
and then you know, it's ready to go. And we'll hang up a bit of sea lettuce as well.
The other way that we dry the sea lettuce in particular is just flat on
on baskets or trays
Alright, into the greenhouse.
So the first thing we do with the sea lettuce,
STEP 4: CRUMBLE SEA LETTUCE INTO SMALL PIECES so it's all nicely dried out now, is we crumble it up.
This is sun-dried,
you can also,
if you don't have any sun,
you can use your oven on super low or on the pilot light setting or you can set it on top of your heater
overnight, on a wire rack,
or whatever emanates a little bit of heat.
You can even dry it on top of your fridge at the back of your fridge because your fridge
generates a bit of heat and you can dry your seaweed that way which is a
no-waste your energy way to do it.
So we're making
the sea lettuce into as little bits as possible. And then we also have our kelp which is all dried out.
It's a bit tougher obviously than the seaweed so we chop off...
STEP 5: CHOP KELP BLADES INTO SMALL PIECES
...the blades,
chop off the side bits.
Now kelp, because it is a lot more of a robust seaweed,
what you can do is chop your blades into little bits,
and then,
give them a little boost in the oven in just five minutes.
STEP 6: DY KELP FOR 5 MINUTES IN THE OVEN Just just super dry them which means that they'll flake really nicely.
Just chop these up and then stick them in our oven,
so they're easy to crumble into our gomasio.
On your kelp, when it's dried you'll often see this white material and fear not this is a really good sign it's not mould
It's Mannit. It is a combination of sugars and
salts that exude from the kelp and from lots of different seaweeds when it dries.
It's really close to MSG, but the natural version and it is super super tasty stuff
This is what umami is made of.
So if you have white stuff that feels powdery on your kelp when it's dried your the right track. This is a good thing.
So we have our sea lettuce, and we have our kelp.
So this is going to be 50% of our mix and the other 50% is sesame seeds,
but we're going to roast the first so we'll do that.
STEP 7: TOAST SESAME SEEDS UNTIL GOLDEN BROWN (NO OIL REQUIRED)
Now we're gonna grind
About equal parts of these two
delicious things together.
You can be scientific about it
you can get down to the ground if you like, or you can just go the proverbial pinch
STEP 8: ADD A MIX OF 50% SEAWEED AND 50% SESAME SEEDS TO A MOTART AND PESTLE
One pinch of that,
ouch, that's hot. One pinch of that.
Going for about 50/50. If you like things saltier, you can add some good quality
salt this mix as well,
but we prefer just the seaweed and the sesame.
And it smells amazing once you get grinding.
You can also do this final stage in a kitchen processor, that's totally fine.
STEP 9: GRIND IT ALL TOGETHER
Now we're going to grind it all together
OPTIONAL: GRIND MIX IN A FOOD PROCESSOR INSTEAD
Okay, now once you've got it all looking gorgeous and together if you want to add a few more whole sesame seeds
OPTIONAL: ADD EXTRA WHOLE SESAME SEEDS
Go for it. Just mix those in.
It's seriously one of the best smells on earth, this recipe.
Alright, and
(STEP 10; PUT GOASIO INTO A JAR WITH AN AIRTIGHT LID) then we get it in the jar and then we eat it. That's it.
So this will keep... it'll keep for quite some time
We usually just make it in little small batches and use it for about a week.
Because the smell but when it's fresh is just so good that um, yeah, we can't get enough of it.
Just store it in an airtight place,
it doesn't need to be cold just to store it on your table so that your kids can eat it with every meal
they have and
yeah, it's a really really easy way of bringing a heap of nutrition and
wild components that wouldn't otherwise be at your kitchen table or in your family's daily diet
into your home from the wilds and near where you live.
So that's how you make forage seaweed gomasio like this,
out of forage sea lettuce and whatever, kelp you have nearby,
and turn it into a delicious nutritious sprinkle that your whole family and your
neighbours and the rest of your community can enjoy.