Pickled Bull Kelp

"All along the Pacific coastline you can come across freshly beached bull kelp (aka “giant kelp”) on the sands at the ocean. During a trip to Alaska a few years back I tasted pickled bull kelp, and liked it so much I brought a jar home for my husband to try. It seems natural to glean fresh kelp on the beaches and use them for food, it makes me wonder why more people don’t do it. This simple method of preparing bull kelp pickles is based on one from “Cooking Alaskan” by Alaska Northwest Books, the recipe by C. Joe Murray, Jr. from Angoon, Alaska. The recipe makes 1 to 2 jars of pickled kelp – if your piece of kelp is very large, you might need to make a double or triple batch of the brine and add more onion, garlic, and lemon juice… it all depends on how much kelp you have and how many jars of pickles you want. :) The pickles can also be hot-packed for longer storage canning. Would also make great gifts!"
 
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Ready In:
25mins
Ingredients:
8
Yields:
1-2 jars pickles
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ingredients

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directions

  • Go beach combing locally (hopefully you’re in an area without lots of water pollution, as I wouldn’t use kelp from a polluted area – check with local authorities to find out, first) and find a freshly-beached bull kelp, making sure it’s firm and fresh. Get 1 or 2 glass jars with lids and make sure they’re well washed.
  • Cut off the hollow portion of the kelp (discarding the bulb) and wash it well in fresh water, making sure to remove any/all sand and detritus.
  • Cut it into 1/2-inch rings and rinse in fresh water again, draining it in a colander.
  • Combine the brine ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let boil for one minute, then remove from heat.
  • Place the kelp rings into glass jars and add slices of onion, a minced clove of garlic, and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice per jar.
  • Add the hot brine to the jar(s) then refrigerate for at least 48 hours before serving.

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<p>It's simply this: I love to cook! :) <br /><br />I've been hanging out on the internet since the early days and have collected loads of recipes. I've tried to keep the best of them (and often the more unusual) and look forward to sharing them with you, here. <br /><br />I am proud to say that I have several family members who are also on RecipeZaar! <br /><br />My husband, here as <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/39857>Steingrim</a>, is an excellent cook. He rarely uses recipes, though, so often after he's made dinner I sit down at the computer and talk him through how he made the dishes so that I can get it down on paper. Some of these recipes are in his account, some of them in mine - he rarely uses his account, though, so we'll probably usually post them to mine in the future. <br /><br />My sister <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/65957>Cathy is here as cxstitcher</a> and <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/62727>my mom is Juliesmom</a> - say hi to them, eh? <br /><br />Our <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/379862>friend Darrell is here as Uncle Dobo</a>, too! I've been typing in his recipes for him and entering them on R'Zaar. We're hoping that his sisters will soon show up with their own accounts, as well. :) <br /><br />I collect cookbooks (to slow myself down I've limited myself to purchasing them at thrift stores, although I occasionally buy an especially good one at full price), and - yes, I admit it - I love FoodTV. My favorite chefs on the Food Network are Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, Mario Batali, and Giada De Laurentiis. I'm not fond over fakey, over-enthusiastic performance chefs... Emeril drives me up the wall. I appreciate honesty. Of non-celebrity chefs, I've gotta say that that the greatest influences on my cooking have been my mother, Julia Child, and my cooking instructor Chef Gabriel Claycamp at Seattle's Culinary Communion. <br /><br />In the last couple of years I've been typing up all the recipes my grandparents and my mother collected over the years, and am posting them here. Some of them are quite nostalgic and are higher in fat and processed ingredients than recipes I normally collect, but it's really neat to see the different kinds of foods they were interested in... to see them either typewritten oh-so-carefully by my grandfather, in my grandmother's spidery handwriting, or - in some cases - written by my mother years ago in fountain pen ink. It's like time travel. <br /><br />Cooking peeve: food/cooking snobbery. <br /><br />Regarding my black and white icon (which may or may not be the one I'm currently using): it the sea-dragon tattoo that is on the inside of my right ankle. It's also my personal logo.</p>
 
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