I was making seaweed salad for the first time tonight and had just finished soaking my wakame for some time. I rinsed it and put it in a colander, but just couldn't squeeze out very much water. The pieces stuck to my hands, squished, and made gurgling noises; but for the most part remained sopping wet, and later tasted completely waterlogged. Am I missing something here? I know there's a way to get water out because I've tasted wonderfully light and refreshing seaweed salad before, but my wakame (even hours later) is just a slimy bowl of sopping seaweed. Thanks!
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Most guides I've seen recommend a salad spinner after the initial draining/squeezing. I've never had trouble with that method. Failing that, I guess you could blot or squeeze it with paper towels; that's what I used to do with lettuce before I had a spinner, and it works... sort of... but not as well, and you'll go through a lot of paper towels that way. Given that we are talking about seaweed here, I wouldn't try to get it perfectly dry. Restaurants actually use specialized (and very expensive) automatic "vegetable dryers" that I believe operate on a similar concept as a clothes dryer. You're not going to get that kind of result at home. Just squeeze or spin-dry enough to get it past the "sopping" stage. It's also possible that you soaked it too long. More than a few minutes and it will just turn to mush, which may have been your problem. I've seen at least one ridiculous recipe for seaweed salad calling for a 5-minute rinse and a 15+ minute soak, which is pretty much guaranteed to give you slime. |
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