Grocery Ninja: Korean Roasted Seaweed, Kim
The Grocery Ninja leaves no aisle unexplored, no jar unopened, no produce untasted. Creep along with her below, and read all her mission reports here. Editor's note: Ling will be taking a brief hiatus from Serious Eats for the next couple of months, but she assures us she'll be back in June.
Kim on peg.
You are looking at a sheet of Korean seaweed, held up by a mini binder clip, and pegged to an iPod cable. There is a very good reason why the seaweed is being "hung out to dry," but it has nothing to do with the recent drizzly weather. I wanted to show you guys how much flimsier and more translucent it is (compared to the thicker Japanese seaweed, nori, used for wrapping sushi that most of us are familiar with), and my roommate was unable to hold the sheet up without giggling. "Tee, hee, hee," he would go, and the chopsticks would wobble, and the sheet would flutter, and my picture would be ruined.
Hence the makeshift iPod cable clothesline. Because, besides not having a roommate with steady hands, I also lack twine in my life.
The one thing I do have though, is seasoned and roasted Korean seaweed—also known as kankoku nori (in Japanese), or more simply, kim (in Korean). Thin sheets of seaweed are basted with nutty sesame oil and sprinkled with crackly grains of salt before being roasted to a crisp. If you're wondering how this makes it any better than the soy sauce-basted and toasted Japanese version called ajitsuke nori (usually found crumbled atop ochazuke or as a snug cummerbund around onigiri), the reason is fat. Since fat equals flavor, no fat equals less flavor. Some people prefer ajitsuke nori's subtleness. I find it lacks the wonderful fragrance and addictive salt kick that kim has.
On days when I'm too lazy to cook, I'll mix some brown rice with furikake and make mini handrolls using the tiny (3 by 4-inch) rectangles of pre-cut Kim. Or, I'll forego the furikake and break out the kimchi. I may even throw some frozen unagi in the toaster oven, and the resulting meal of sizzling terriyaki-glazed eel, kim, and seasoned brown rice, buys me a matchstick girl's moment of not feeling like an impoverished writer. No matter how you work it (kim), it's a quick, healthy meal with minimal clean-up.
Mini packs of kim.
The precut sheets of kim come in stay-fresh individual packs and are great for not sending green flakes flying all over the dining table when you rip one of the larger sheets apart. They also come in flavors like green tea, kimchi, bbq, peppers, and what have you. I'm not a huge fan of the flavored versions—I find the additional nuances detract from the sesame nuttiness of the plain kim.
Kimbap. Photograph from u m a m i on Flickr
The larger sheets (about 8 inches square), on the other hand, are indispensable for making kimbap—delicious Korean sushi stuffed with cooked ingredients like barbecued fish sausages, stir-fried beef, crab sticks, tuna, omelet ribbons, pickled radish, blanched spinach, and seasoned burdock root.
This weekend, I found the holy grail of kim. Freshly grilled ones in (of all places) Silicon Valley's Little India—Sunnyvale, California. Located at the back of a Korean grocery is a one-woman-operated stand under a neon-lit "fresh baked" sign. $4.50 buys you a generous pack of as-you-wait grilled kim, and you get to pick between salted and unsalted versions. The crackle on these is fantastic. And there's the guarantee that you won't get a pack of rancid kim (fat equals flavor, but it also means faster spoilage).
My hands shook like my roommate's when I reached out for a pack of these. But I stopped short of giggling like a little girl.
Hankook Supermarket
1092 East El Camino Real, Sunnyvale CA 94087 (map)
408-244-0871
Open Monday to Sunday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
About the author: Wan Yan Ling can usually be found in the kitchen procrastinating on "real work" or online tracking down obscure recipes. Ling thinks eating alone is no fun, and she still believes in hand-mixing.
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16 Comments:
Oh wow, that first picture is awesome! Beautiful texture!
Thesymbol at 1:21PM on 05/04/09
So all the Korean Kims are really just named after roasted seaweed? ;-) (Or is it the other way around?)
This looks really good. I'll have to hunt some down.
missmanders at 1:49PM on 05/04/09
Just to let you know, the roasted/seasoned kim with sesame oil and salt isn't used for kimbab. You use the non-seasoned version for kimbab.
bionicgrrrl at 2:03PM on 05/04/09
missmanders: I'm not Korean, but I believe someone once told me that "Kim" (the family name) means "gold" and derives from the Chinese character for "gold."
Wan Yan Ling at 2:04PM on 05/04/09
bionicgrrrl: I've actually seen both versions used for kimbap in Korea. Maybe it's a commercial VS housemade difference? The seasoned and roasted kim doesn't hold up well if left sitting, so maybe that's why the plain ones tend to be used in stores?
Wan Yan Ling at 2:25PM on 05/04/09
I'm Japanese but I prefer the Korean version when I'm just eating them with rice (or straight out of a package). It's the oil. and the Korean ones are thinner, I think.
hmw0029 at 3:51PM on 05/04/09
@missmanders, @onedaylingers, the family name Kim is indeed derived from the chinese character for gold. the seaweed Kim is derived from another character. they are homonyms.
cupcup at 5:28PM on 05/04/09
Mm I love Korean roasted seaweed sheets!! I love it when my father sends me a case. I sit there and open those parcels and eat them in front of the tv or computer...they're extremely salty but oh so good.
I love kimbap more than California + veggie rolls w/ meat fusion because of the sesame oil. *swoon*
Cassaendra at 5:40PM on 05/04/09
I crave this now! My mom used to give me a bowl of rice seasoned with sesame oil, sesame seeds and a little soy sauce, paired with a plate heaping with seaweed to eat for breakfast before school. Btw, you pronounce it "geem" as in steam, with a slightly hard g. same goes for the name "kim." not kim as in slim.
You can also take unseasoned sheets, brush them with sesame oil, hold them over a hot flame/stove, watch them become translucent, then sprinkle them with salt.
nomnom at 6:51PM on 05/04/09
I love reading your columns. I know my way around Asian grocery stores. Yet you always profile something unique that I want to try.
winkyj at 7:13PM on 05/06/09
Cassaendra: I think kim makes most cooked sushi rolls better. They make even plain rice taste good =p
nomnom: Thank you for the pronunciation guide—I was wondering about that when I saw some sources spell it "gim."
I found a recipe for converting the regular plain seaweed sheets (nori) to kim here: http://skinny-epicurean.blogspot.com/
Exactly as you describe =)
Wan Yan Ling at 11:38PM on 05/06/09
winkyj: Thank you! I have plenty of fun hunting and gathering (and taste testing) for this column...
Wan Yan Ling at 11:39PM on 05/06/09
Hey my mom used to pick up something similar from Chinatown in NYC for me when I was a kid. I ate it as a snack because my mother told me it'll keep the "trolls" at bay. I was the only black kid in brooklyn that I knew that ate seaweed to keep away the dam trolls. Yea...my cousins thought that was the funniest thing, all 10 of them, all the time. Anyone have a clue as to what I was snacking on? My mother seems to have forgotten what she gave me.
philadooklyn at 11:44PM on 05/07/09
philadooklyn: did they come in mini packs that look like this
http://www.amazon.com/Matsutani-Ajitsuke-Seasoned-Seaweed-Individually/dp/B000QT5ZGO/ref=pd_bxgy_gro_img_b
I think your mom fed you ajitsuke nori—the soy-sauce basted, Japanese version. My mom did too =)
Wan Yan Ling at 12:11PM on 05/15/09
Aha. Good to know! (I was born a Korean Kim, so I always wondered where the name came from.)
missmanders at 9:07PM on 08/10/09
wow i've never tried fresh grilled kim before! definitely need to try it next time im in the bay!
phatshanghai at 1:27PM on 09/07/09