SeaVeggie Pesto

I haven't been posting much lately because I've been writing a lot lately for school.  I'm excited that I can finally take a break from that because I *finally* submitted my first refereed paper to the Astrophysical Journal.  Here's hoping that the editor/referees are gentle.


Anyway, I do more than just write about food.  This should be obvious since I've only posted twice this month and I'd be doing a lot of nothing if I didn't. ;)  Awhile back, I had the opportunity to give a talk at Austin's Nerd Nite.  It was about astronomy and sort of a brief overview of the stars I study and why they're interesting.  There's a video my Nerd Nite talk, along with the other speakers.  In meeting with the Nerd Nite organizers, I got to meet Lewis Weil, a man of many talents.  Not only does he help organize Nerd Nite (which you should totally check out if you're in Austin), he also grows his own ogonori, which he calls SeaVeggies.  Lewis let me take a pack home to play with and I came up with seaveggie pesto.

SeaVeggie Pesto

SeaVeggie Pesto
1 pack (~30g) SeaVeggies 
1 T miso paste 
1 T soy sauce 
2 T toasted sesame seeds 
1/2 T sesame oil
splash of rice wine vinegar to taste


Process all the ingredients until it makes a thick paste.  

pesto+couscous

I tried this pesto mixed in with some couscous, which was pretty good and also on some grilled fish.  The salinity of the seaveggies in the pesto match really well with seafood.  I tried it with steelhead trout but you could definitely do this with salmon or any other flavorful fish.

pesto on grilled trout

A month or so later, I stopped by the SeaVeggie stand at the downtown farmers market and was given a couple packs to bring to the Austin Food Blogger Alliance potluck.  I made a sesame and wasabi SeaVeggie salad.  This was sort of whipped together at the last minute and these amounts are approximate.

Sesame+wasabi SeaVeggie salad

2 packs SeaVeggies, roughly chopped  (the SeaVeggies, not the packs. ;))

1 T sesame seeds, toasted

1-2 t prepared wasabi (depending upon how much heat you like)

1 T sesame oil

2 T mirin

2 T rice wine vinegar

Whisk together the wasabi paste, sesame oil, mirin, and rice wine vinegar.  Taste and adjust for seasoning.  If you find it to need some sweetness, either add in a bit more mirin or you could also whisk in a few drops of honey.  Combine with the sesame seeds and the sea veggies.  Enjoy!

wasabi+sesame SeaVeggie salad

The combination of my terrible photography skills and the fact that ogonori isn't, perhaps, the prettiest vegetable around means that these photos don't do SeaVeggies justice.  Both applications were really tasty!  You can purchase SeaVeggies at the downtown SFC Saturday farmers market and at Wheatsville Co-op on any day.  Thanks, Lewis, for the three packs of SeaVeggies and for letting me play with a really fun and new-to-me ingredient!