I love wakame.  I will note, though, that I've found tiny snail shells in my seaweed fairly often.  DH tends to avoid dishes in which I use seaweed.

Wakame is a type of seaweed. It comes in a vac pac is longish, shrivelled, dry strands. When rehydrated it looks like unprocessed seaweed almost frond-like. You've likely eaten it in miso soup before. The easiest way to work with wakame is clip it to the size you need with kitchen shears BEFORE you rehydrate it, though less vital to do so when you're cookin it down to make a sauce like this. You know those little sponge in a capsule toys that inflate incredibly large when rehydrated? Yeah, be sure you get an idea of how much dried will equate after hydration.

I use Genkai brand wakame. Honestly, most seaweed is goin to be processed outside the USA no matter if an American company repackages it with their name. Personal preference is Japanese brand, I don't like Korean brands of Japanese foods. Some wakame comes precut and it says so in Japanese on the bag but not in English. Should't matter it'll cook the same. Wakame texture is a bit more slick so I wouldn't substitute any other seaweed type. While you can put nori in a soup or make a paste with it, nori is different.

Quote from: GoingNuts on December 18, 2011, 07:07:14 AM
What is wakame?

My question, exactly 

What is wakame?

So where do you find wakame that you feel comfortable about?  How about a brand of miso?

Ra3chel


Posted: Dec 26th, 2010 at 05:15 pm      
We're not vegan, but we were *really* uncomfortable getting a brand of fish sauce with which we weren't familiar, and we figured based on time limitations that it would be simpler to come up with a substitute from scratch than to call around over a holiday weekend.

My foodie houseguest found this recipe online; we made a half batch for our Tom Kha (with a lot left over), and she assures me that it is, while not identical to, every bit as good as the real thing:

Vegan Fish Sauce
(makes about 3 cups)

via thekitchn.com

1 1/2 cups shredded wakame
6 cups water
6 fat cloves garlic, crushed but not peeled
1 T peppercorns
1 cup mushroom soy sauce
1 T miso

Combine wakame, garlic, peppercorns and water in a large sauce pan and bring to a boil.
Lower heat and simmer 20 minutes.
Strain and return the liquid back to the pot.
Add soy sauce, bring back to a boil and cook until mixture is reduced and almost unbearable salty. Remove from heat and stir in miso.
Decant into a bottle and keep in the refrigerator. Use one-for-one to replace fish sauce in vegan recipes.