Wakame salad

I think he's funny.

His is the only video I've seen that uses agar and wood ear mushrooms. His is the only video that soaks dry ingredients then rinses again. 

Seems a waste to toss the soaking liquids. Those could go into a dashi and used as base for miso. Maybe he knows something I don't like how these things are processed. One time I told a young woman that I steamed green beans and broccoli and the steaming water was slightly green so I drizzled salt and drank it and she went, "e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-w." But it was actually pretty good. Like vegetable tea.

Most other videos include thinly sliced cucumber. 

I saw this prepared on Milk Street and it's become one of my favorite things. Imagine, you can make a darn good salad without any fresh vegetables. 

I just now bought 20 small packages of wood ear mushroom through eBay. Each little package makes a small bowlful. A little over a dollar per packet. Where are you going to find mushrooms that inexpensive? EBay has everything that I queried. Even agar in strips. 

Agar seems weird. It must be like gelatin. Except a little bit weirder. I don't know how true this is but I understand that acids mess up their setting properly. But how much, I don't know. I gather you cannot include such things as pineapple. 

An amusing review on Amazon to these agar strips follows. 

Being the good guest that I am, when I was invited to a friends' house for Thanksgiving, I offered to bring some dish along with me. Being the good hosts that my friends were, they stated that no dish was required, but I could bring something if I wanted to. Being an I.T. person, the obvious choice was alcohol.

Agar agar has been used in many Asian desserts for a while, but with the molecular gastronomy movement, it's just really starting to take off in the United States. If you know what agar agar is, there's not much to say about Roland's version - it's packaged in 3oz packages, each package containing several strands or strips of the agar (they are tied with a nice little red ribbon that you can see in the item image). They are not bleached, not certified organic (but come on, agar is seaweed), and have no listed additives. It's literally just agar agar that's been dehydrated.

Agar agar is a tasteless substance which can replace flavorless gelatin in recipes. The only bad thing about agar is that the conversion of gelatin to agar is a bit tricky. Although in most instances you can do a 1:1 substitution, variables like acids and enzymes can play havoc with the agar. Also it should be noted that agar can set up much stiffer than gelatin if you go overboard with the amount. Imagine the jello becoming more of a gumdrop consistency.

I did not know that some of the people coming to the Thanksgiving dinner were vegetarians, so when I brought out my various jello shots the sad vegetarians told me that they cannot drink/eat them because gelatin is not vegetarian friendly. I told them that these jello shots were made from agar agar, which is a seaweed. Thus the vegetarians were happy and allowed to get drunk with the rest of us meat-eating heathens.