Carrot and Arame (Yes, I Mean Seaweed) Salad

You may be wondering why anyone would ever buy, use, or eat seaweed ... aside from Bear Grylls who seemed to eat a fair bit on Man vs Wild recently ...

Well, here are 5 good reasons to drop seaweed into your trolley at the natural foods store:

1. It's full of iron and iodine and zinc and calcium.

2. You buy it dry, so you can always have some on-hand for random seaweed needs.

3. Variability in diet is *good*.

4. You will impress your friends, your kids, your partner, and the checkout lady with your daring and novel food choices.

5. It tastes truly amazing in this salad.

UPDATE (27 Sept 2013): Since this recipe, I've found I prefer to use nori sheets instead of arame. Partly it's because I usually have nori on hand for sushi making (and have to specially buy arame). If you decide to use nori, just toast a sheet of it over a hot flame until it starts to crispen, then roll it up and use scissors to cut it into tiny thin strips. Sprinkle over the salad. Yum!

Also, a few more carrot salad options are highlighted here.

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Carrot and Arame Salad

serves 2-4 as a side

The time
5 min

The ingredients
4 c shredded carrot
1 c soaked arame (or nori, see UPDATE above)*
3 Tbs almond oil**
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbs rice vinegar
handful of fresh chives (optional)
sea salt, to taste

*Arame is a mild seaweed that usually comes pre-cooked and shredded. To rehydrate it, merely put a handful of dried arame in a bowl and cover with boiling water. After 15 minutes it should be lovely and plumped up and ready to drain and add to the salad. Save the water - you can use it to water your garden.

**I love almond oil for salads ... but if you don't have any on-hand, just use another mild vegetable oil

***As always, use organic ingredients when you can.

The process
1. Mix everything together and serve.

The cost
I always try to buy the organic 'juicing' carrots that they sell at the natural foods store. They're much much cheaper, and usually the only reason is cosmetic. (They tend to be knobbly and gnomish, as far as carrots go. But they taste ... like carrots.) Good quality seaweed, from a reputable source, is important - and you'll pay a little more for it. But even so, this salad will come out to only $1-$2 per lovely, organic serve.

Enjoy!
Amanda xx

PS. I should note - this recipe's been tested on Absolute Seaweed Haters with resounding success.