Turkey with a Side of Seaweed

THIS IS OUR YEAR FOR A THANKSGIVING with a twist. I’m living in my first apartment that really feels like home (hooray!), so last week my mom packed a bag and drove down the coast to spend the holiday with me. We’re going to be eating an all-vegetarian meal with some dear friends in Charlotte. On the menu is old-fashioned corn pudding, apple crisp, mashed potatoes, sautéed kale, and baked squash with apples. What won’t we be eating, you ask (turkey and ham aside)? Seaweed. Yup, that’s right. Because we already tried that on Thanksgiving.

Two years ago my mom declared that she would be making a Hijiki seaweed salad as her contribution for our extended family’s big Thanksgiving feast. No one argued. But she defended it nonetheless. As a devout health-food eater (and a dreamer at that), she told us all that a seaweed salad was, in fact, a far more traditional choice than a turkey stuffed with bread or sweet potatoes mixed up with sugar and marshmallows because the Early American settlers lived by the sea. And, duh, they ate seaweed.

But the Pilgrims would have used animal fat instead of sesame oil, she assured us later.

This year, the Hijiki will be absent. In part because Mom claims no one ate it the last time (although I do remember some very manly Italian family members shoveling forkfuls of the dish in their mouths between bites of turkey). We’re going a different route for the Thanksgiving 2k9 menu, but perhaps the Hijiki will be back another year, taking its place between the green beans and the cranberry sauce as the only truly black food of the harvest season. It’s a quite delicious recipe. So if you’re looking for the perfect Early American Plymouth Rock Japan fusion this holiday season (or whenever), here’s your ticket:

Mom’s Thanksgiving Hijiki Salad

1 tablespoon sesame oil

2 cups soaked reconstituted Hijiki

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 ½ cups carrots, cut into matchsticks

1 cup corn kernels (fresh or frozen)

several stalk of scallions, chopped

2 tablespoons mirin

tamari to taste

Heat sesame oil over medium head in a large skillet. Sauté onion until tender and translucent. Add carrots, and continue to cook until crispy tender. Stir in Hijiki, corn and mirin together. Cover the seaweed vegetable mixture, stirring occasionally for 8 – 10 minutes. Add tamari and scallions. Stir well and transfer to a salad bowl. Toss with more sesame oil to taste. Serve room temperature.

(photo via Japanese Food Dictionary)

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