Sea vegetables are an excellent source of minerals, such as iron, magnesium and calcium, and B-vitamins like folate,? riboflavin and pantothenic acid. They are also rich in lignans, a plant compounds that recent research have showed to protect our body against cancer growth. Irish moss in particular, has showed some benefits for treatment of damaged lungs from pneumonia, smoking, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and possibly Mycoplasma and Chlamydia.
Back to the kitchen!
Irish moss is usually sold in a dry form, preserved with salt. This way it can last for many months, if we want to use it for raw food dishes, first we need to take the portion we are going to use, I suggest to start with 1/2 cup.
We wash the dry Irish Moss at least 5 times, until all the salt is removed. Sometimes you will some cotton strings from nets, also try to remove, until its pretty clean. Then we need to soak it for at least 3 hours, I like to leave it over night to allow it to rehydrate fully.
We will notice that the Irish Moss will expand in size, from this point we prepare IMOP (Irish Moss Paste).
[stextbox id=”info” caption=”Irish Moss Paste”]
Ingredients:
1 Cup of soaked and cleaned Irish Moss
2 Cups of water
Place ingredients on high speed blender (highly recommended) and blend until smooth (until the blades make no more sounds with the paste). Remove the paste, if you see any small chunks blend again or remove them.Place paste in a glass container and keep on fridge.
Keeps for 1 month on fridge.
Source: USDA
[/stextbox]
First way to use Irish Moss:
Make your usual nut milk and add 1 tsp of Irish Moss paste, blend again until smooth, notice difference? More thickness with less nuts and fat!
[stextbox id=”alert” caption=”Warning”]Do not over use Irish Moss! Go with small amounts otherwise it will taste like seaweed![/stextbox]
In Hong Kong it’s called “Sam Wu Choi”, it’s sold in many organic health food stores.
Keep in touch for further tips and secrets!