Seaweeds are deeply nourishing, deeply healing foods. Laver is ubiquitous around the British Isles. At low tide, it sticks to the rocks like thin black plastic sheets. Handfuls can be gathered in minutes.
Laver is extremely low in cholesterol and a good source of vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamin, pantothenic acid, calcium, phosphorus and zinc, and an extremely good source of protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate, iron, potassium, copper and manganese.
I like to use seaweeds in many dishes from savoury to sweet. Play with it, experiment. The following laver recipe got the thumbs up from a couple of younglings and their mum who originally turned their nose up at the idea of eating seaweed.
Ingredients
- 600g diced pork
- 1 onion (chopped)
- 3 garlic cloves (chopped)
- 1 red pepper (chopped)
- 2 green peppers (chopped)
- 3 handfuls of laver (chopped)
- ½ pint of vegetable stock
- glug of vegetable oil (note: please don’t be like one person who emailed me irate because they didn’t know how much a ‘glug’ was and that I should – a fascist control word – state the exact amount in mls…sigh… sometimes I feel there is no hope for the world with such uncreative, unthinking numptiness doing the rounds!)
- salt & black pepper
Suggested Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200C.
- Chop garlic and set aside, then dice the onion.
- Gently fry the onion until just starting to go translucent, next add the garlic and pork, now the red & green peppers, and fry everything until the meat has browned.
- Add the chopped laver, stir and fry for a minute before adding the stock,salt and pepper.
- Transfer to a casserole dish, pop a lid on the casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid for the final 10-15 minutes. Timings are general, you know your stove better than I.
- Try serving with mashed potato or boiled white rice
Serves: 4