3 Sweet kombu / £3.99

Sugar Kelp (Saccharina latissima) is a long broad sub tidal kelp with a light brown colour and savoury flavour. Can be wrapped around fish when steam baking or cut into strips and used as a kelp pasta. It is also traditionally used in Japanese stocks.

slow food chef alison sykora wowed the audience with her seaweed soup in the Seasonal Tasting Theatre at this years BBC Good Food show . sugar kelp gets its name from the white powder that forms on the kelp when it dries this powder is saccharine a form of sugar you can apparently make seaweed wine from this.

1 x 6 inch strip per half pint of stock Japanese stock.

use as a umami stock by soaking the seaweed in cold water for 15 mins then rinse.

add the kombu to half a pint of hot water for 5 mins then remove the seaweed.

use the stock with meat and fish dishes for that Japanese umami flavor.