Recently, I have been experimenting with cooking with fresh BC sea plants. So far I have tried Kelp, Sea Lettuce and Sea Asparagus. I started by looking for plants that could be added to variations of a Hawaiian raw fish dish called Poke, although I often leave out the rice. All three of these plants work well for that.
KELP I tried boiling it in salted water first and then cutting it up in small strips. What surprised me was that after the flat wide kelp was boiled the kelp turned bright green and the water turned yellow. I understand you can also wrap kelp around fish and steam or bake it. I have also seen it grated, seasoned and dried to use as salad toping.
SEA LETTUCE Smaller sea plant and bright green. Works well in seafood type salads and my variations on Poke.
SEA ASPARAGUS. This is a shore plant that looks very much like small asparagus. If you find a spot, there is usually lots of it. You can pick the upper tender parts and wash and sauté it in butter and garlic. Scissors make harvesting it easy.
Where I pick mine, there are often some geese around. For this reason I wash it well and then boil it to be sure it is clean of any geese related contamination. It also goes well in seasoned seaweed salad and Poke variation type recipes. Sometimes, especially if they are older parts of the plant, they can have a woody type white core that you can pull out after it is boiled. Sometimes this plant has been sold fresh in local stores and years ago a friend of mine purchased a licence from the govt. and was assigned a territory to pick it and then wholesale it.
Anyone else cooking with local sea plants or have any good recipes or suggestions?
KELP I tried boiling it in salted water first and then cutting it up in small strips. What surprised me was that after the flat wide kelp was boiled the kelp turned bright green and the water turned yellow. I understand you can also wrap kelp around fish and steam or bake it. I have also seen it grated, seasoned and dried to use as salad toping.
SEA LETTUCE Smaller sea plant and bright green. Works well in seafood type salads and my variations on Poke.
SEA ASPARAGUS. This is a shore plant that looks very much like small asparagus. If you find a spot, there is usually lots of it. You can pick the upper tender parts and wash and sauté it in butter and garlic. Scissors make harvesting it easy.
Where I pick mine, there are often some geese around. For this reason I wash it well and then boil it to be sure it is clean of any geese related contamination. It also goes well in seasoned seaweed salad and Poke variation type recipes. Sometimes, especially if they are older parts of the plant, they can have a woody type white core that you can pull out after it is boiled. Sometimes this plant has been sold fresh in local stores and years ago a friend of mine purchased a licence from the govt. and was assigned a territory to pick it and then wholesale it.
Anyone else cooking with local sea plants or have any good recipes or suggestions?
Last edited: