Salmon Rice with Hijiki Seaweed

Salmon Rice with Hijiki Seaweed
🐟 🍚 🌿

Hijiki is a dried Japanese sea vegetable that looks like thin, wiry black strands and is typically rehydrated before cooking. Once it softens, it takes on a tender, slightly chewy texture and a deep, savory flavor with subtle mineral notes from the sea.

Here, it cooks right alongside short grain rice in a light dashi seasoned with sake, soy sauce, and a touch of sesame oil, infusing the grains with oceanic character. That makes it an especially natural partner for hot-smoked salmon. Set over the warm rice to gently heat through, the fish releases its seasoned oils—salt, a hint of brown sugar, and alderwood smoke—into the grains below.

Finished with sliced scallions, fresh cilantro, thin rounds of Fresno chile, and lemon wedges for brightness, it’s deeply savory and completely crave-worthy.

Salmon Rice with Hijiki Seaweed Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 c. (less 2 T.) dashi
• 1 T. dried hijiki seaweed
• 1 c. short-grain white rice, rinsed
• 1 T. sake
• 1 t. toasted sesame oil
• 1 t. soy sauce
• 4 oz. hot-smoked salmon filet, at room temperature

Method

Make traditional dashi or use the quick method of dissolving 1/2 teaspoon of hondashi into 2 cups of filtered water.

Rehydrate the seaweed in water for 30 minutes. Drain and rinse.

Combine rice, dashi, sake, sesame oil, and soy sauce in an earthenware pot. Let sit for 20 minutes.

Sprinkle the rehydrated hijiki over the top of the rice mixture. Bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 13 minutes. Remove from heat and place smoked salmon filet on top of the rice. Immediately cover and let rest for 20 minutes to finish cooking the rice and warm up the salmon.

Use a wooden spoon to break up the salmon into the rice.

To Serve

• scallion, sliced
• fresno chile, sliced
• cilantro sprigs
• lemon wedges

Top the salmon rice with scallions, Fresno chile slices, cilantro sprigs, and lemon wedges.

Credit

Though completely different from her recipe, this one was inspired by a beautiful cookbook called Donabe by Naoko Takei Moore.