Explainer | How seaweed, a stand-out fat-free superfood, aids heart, gut and thyroid health – and is good for the environment
- A Hong Kong restaurant will soon offer a six-course menu of dishes made with seaweed, which studies show has anticancer, antiviral and antioxidant properties
- Seaweed is also a sustainable, environment-friendly crop that’s easy to grow, and seaweed farming is expected to almost double in value globally by 2025
Vicky Lau, chef-owner of two-Michelin-star Tate Dining Room in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, enjoys cooking with all types of seaweed, but one of her favourites is kombu.
Widely consumed in East Asia, the thick, waxy, rubbery kelp lends a unique savoury, umami flavour to Japanese soup stock (dashi) and seasonings, thanks to its high concentration of glutamic acid, a common amino acid found in vegetables and animal proteins.
“We always have good-quality kombu stock in our restaurant; it gives an especially delicious umami taste to our seafood dishes,” says Lau.
“We also like to use seaweed butter, which we make by soaking kombu and pressure-cooking it with sake and soy sauce, and then blending it into a paste and mixing it with butter. We serve our seaweed butter alongside sourdough bread and also use it to make dishes like cuttlefish noodles with seaweed sauce, and risotto with mussels.”
Come January, Lau will shine an even bigger spotlight on the superfood when she launches a six-course “Ode to Seaweed” menu at Tate Dining Room. It will showcase marine plants including red carrageenan, sea tangle and gracilaria.