Lunar New Year is almost upon us again! This is yet another year we haven’t been able to travel home for celebrations with the family, so I console myself by making lots of snacks commonly associated with this time of the year. It gets me in a more festive mood and reminds me of my family at home.
If you’re a bit of a last minute person like I am, these are the perfect snack to make in double quick time and can be doubled or tripled even to give away as gifts. They are savoury and full of umami goodness from the seaweed. You’d need a huge amount of determination not to make a huge dent in your crisps stash, they are so moreish.
It really doesn’t need much of a recipe, but here goes:
Seaweed crisps
Vegetable oil
10 spring roll pastry sheets (I used TYJ brand)
10 pieces nori (seaweed) sheets
Table salt
Shichimi togarashi or furikake (optional)
White sesame seeds (optional)
One egg, beaten
1. Heat up a deep fat fryer with 2 inches of vegetable oil to 170 degrees Celsius.
2. Using a pastry brush, brush beaten egg onto a spring roll pastry sheet to the area size that is about the same size as your nori sheet.
3. Sprinkle with shichimi togarashi or furikake seasoning. If using furikake, you may not require salt but if using shichimi togarashi, sprinkle some table salt all over too. Sprinkle over some sesame seeds. Don’t be too liberal with your toppings as you will need enough pastry area with brushed egg exposed for the seaweed to stick on to.
4. Place a sheet of nori in the middle of the pastry sheet. The nori sheet may be smaller than the pastry sheet but that doesn’t matter, the outer pieces will still have a bit of seaweed stuck on them. Last year (pics above) I cut away the excess pastry and I’m still deeply ashamed for the waste.
5. Cut the spring roll pastry up into 4 vertical strips of equal(ish) width. Pile them up and cut them into 8 smaller rectangles each, giving you 32 pieces. You may want to test your seasonings by frying this batch first, but I went boldly ahead and made them all at once!
6. Prep the rest of the pastry and nori until you’ve used up all the nori sheets.
7. Deep fry them in batches, around 10 to 15 pieces at a time, depending on the size of your fryer. Separate the little pieces out first before dropping them one by one into the oil, then give them a stir with some wooden chopsticks so they don’t stick together when frying. Turn them over halfway so they brown evenly. It will only take 1 or 2 minutes to cook fully. Remove them when they are a light brown colour (they will darken slightly on cooling) and drain onto kitchen towels.
8. Store in an airtight container. They will probably keep for a week but good luck in getting them to last that long!
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