Kelp Caviar
I want you to visualize swimming in a lake on a hot summer day. You’re floating freely, looking at the sky completely relaxed when you feel some aquatic plant brush against your leg causing you to thrash about screaming seaweed. I can only imagine how you may react if I served up some seaweed on a plate to you.
Most people aren’t aware but they consume seaweed numerous times a day. More specifically we consume aquatic brown algae known as kelp which has mucilaginous ergo slimy properties which are extracted and used as emulsifiers. These emulsifiers are used in food stuffs like salad dressings or ice creams to stop them from separating. Kelp is also used in toothpaste, soap and body lotions.
Kelp is harvested from the cold North Atlantic waters with the North Pacific waters producing wakame. Like kelp, wakame is used in a number of culinary preparations but is most famed for being served as seaweed tea known as kombucha in Japan. When kelp is dried and ground into a powder the slimy bits become concentrated and are used as a food thickening agent or emulsifier known as alginate. It is praised by vegetarians as it can be substituted in recipes that normally are thickened with eggs.
Chefs have been playing with gastronomy or the science of food in their kitchens turned laboratories and have created a number of novel new ways of preparing and serving food. One of these concepts is to take two main components from dried ground kelp and separate them. The first being alginate which is rehydrated with a variety of natural ingredients causing it to turn into a firm gelatinous liquid. This liquid is then dropped with a spoon, eyedropper or pumped by a machine through something similar to a shower head producing into a coagulation solution of calcium extracted from the kelp which causes only the surface of the flavoured alginate drops to coagulate into uniformly shaped pearls. The firm surface of these pearls encapsulates the inner free flowing liquid. Simply put the pearls are like a biting into a soft jelly filled candy.
Unless you are Chef Nye the science guy the aforementioned procedure may have sounded exceptionally complex or merely put you to sleep. Either way I want you to know that kelp pearls are now easy to enjoy at home without any fuss or lab experiments. Kelp Caviar is a Canadian company harvesting Canadian kelp to produce an entire line of flavoured kelp pearls.
I recently discovered this product line at The Firehouse Gourmet in East City where I sampled a few varieties of Kelp Caviar which included wasabi and sturgeon flavours. It was profoundly refreshing in my opinion compared to fish egg caviars. The little pearls popped just like fish egg and tasted mildly of the ocean.
This fat free, all natural gourmet condiment, is loaded with minerals with it being notably high in iodine, iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium. It is further packed full with the following vitamins A, B1, B2, C, D, E, and amino acids, which all contribute to a healthy diet and are easily assimilated in the body.
These tasty little beads would accompany cheese, meats, crackers, potato skins, sandwiches and an endless list of other possible food items. This incredibly shelf stable product will hold for three months in the refrigerator after opening is a must try condiment.
Sometimes it`s hard to find locally sourced foods in the dead of winter, but sometimes if you adventure outside of the normal realms of your culinary universe you might find yourself in East City, eating vegan kelp pearls.
@KelpCaviar or www.facebook.com/kelpcaviar
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