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Seaweed Salad

A salad of soaked seaweed mixed with shallot, soy sauce, vinegar, mirin, sesame oil, cayenne, and toasted sesame seeds.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Seaweed and sesame work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 58 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl butyrate, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Timeabout 5 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: soy, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the seaweed

  1. Rinse the seaweed and soak until it has increased 10 times in size, about 5 minutes. Gently squeeze to remove excess water.

  2. Remove any hard bits of seaweed and chop the rest. Put pieces in a bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Toss with the shallot, soy sauce, vinegar, mirin (or sugar), sesame oil, cayenne, and salt (if necessary). Taste and add seasonings as needed.

  2. Garnish with sesame seeds.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Seaweed + sesametop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  2. Rice + sesametop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Seaweed + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Vinegar + sesametop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,133 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hydroxy-3-butanone (caramel-like, roast).

  5. Shallot + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together2,282 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried seaweed or wakame
Forms the body of the salad and absorbs the dressing as it rehydrates.
Soy sauce
Supplies salty, savory flavor that seasons the seaweed.
Rice vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the salt.
Dark sesame oil
Adds nutty aroma and a fat-based richness to the dressing.
Mirin
Adds gentle sweetness that rounds out the soy and vinegar.

The step that matters

Squeeze the seaweed gently after soaking. Rehydrated seaweed holds a lot of water. Squeezing out the excess keeps the dressing from being diluted, so the soy, vinegar and oil cling to the pieces and the seasoning stays concentrated.

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (seaweed, sauce, rice, vinegar, sugar, sesame):

  1. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Welsh onionbetter flavor fit
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against seaweed, sauce, rice, vinegar, sugar, sesame. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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