Sea Beans

[saskanuck]

I've never heard of this, living nowhere near a coastline.

Looks interesting and sounds delicious.

[ludja]

I've never heard of this, living nowhere near a coastline. 

Looks interesting and sounds delicious.

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I grew up in New England near the coast ( less than an hour) and never heard of this either. Welcome too, by the way, saskanuck. (your alias sounds like a New England name!!!).

The first time I heard of this was in Judy Rodger's "Zuni Cafe Cookbook", mentioned more in the link to the previous thread above. Here's the recipe she has using salted glasswort or sea beans:

"Sand Dabs with Shallots, Sea Beans & Sherry Vinegar"

(Sands Dabs are a mild flatfish that are served a lot in SF; sub would be flounder or sole I think. She also mentions that the prep would work well with skate wing.

Her "substitute" if you can't get pickled glasswort is capers. Thinking of places ones uses capers opens up a bunch of ideas for using it.

Surprised that not many from the NY board have chimed in. Is this ingredient being using in Manhattan restaurants?

[frdagaa]

Got some in the fridge now. Can get it at Harry's in atlanta. First discovered it at a good local grocery and couldn't resist trying it (always try to expand my food knowledge) but had to make something up. I cut it in ~ 1/2 in lengths and sprinkled it on freshly shucked oysters, then barely covered all with cream subtly scented with garlic and put under the broiler till just barely brown. Yum. Adds a very nice saltiness. Also used it fresh tossed in with zucchini puree-coated pasta at the last minute. Great.

It's slightly tough, and certainly can be blanched briefly for more lively color and slightly more tender texture.

Liked it so much I bought some seeds and grew it this summer (water with salt-water!) but it turned out to be a different variety from Italy, and I kind of neglected it. I guess it's used in Italian cuisine more than here.

Use it whenever you want a green, salty taste, esp. with a bit-o-crunch.

[Gifted Gourmet]

description and recipe here for samphire

Culinary uses:

The crisp, salty, fleshy tender stalks of young samphire, gathered in May or June, can be eaten raw, plain or with a vinaigrette, alone or in a salad with other ingredients. As the season progresses samphire becomes a bit bitter and it is better to blanch it. Just a few minutes in boiling water will remove its bitterness and excess salt. Sometimes called "poor man's asparagus,"

The Worldwide Gourmet

A friend of mine who is a chef brought me some of these "sea asparagus" or samphire to try. I knew that I needed to blanch them .. they have a very marine, salty taste ... but are also crispy ...

Any suggestions from members who have made samphire?

[jackal10]

Here (UK) they have a fairly short season around the end of June.

Treat like asparagus, except they have a non-edible glassy core unless very young which you suck the succulent bits off.

Also traditionally pickled.

[SuzySushi]

I've never found it raw around here...

First tasted it in Brittany, France, where it's added to seafood stews. Delicious!

[Gifted Gourmet]

Quite briny from what I just blanched and buttered .. but delightfully crispy!

The French combine chopped pickled salicorne with crème fraîche to make a sauce for smoked herring and other marinated fish. And this thread has got me thinking that it might be a tasty addition to a seafood risotto.

from Carswell, circa 2004

[Adam Balic]

The pickled form was also served with roast mutton/lamb in the UK at one point.

[SobaAddict70]

You mean, like this?

Here we go with the last trip, for the blog anyway. We have done some inland and bay area treks. Today we go to the beach, Galveston Island to be specific. Galveston Island is a barrier island that lies just off the Texas coast. Texas has a lot of barrier islands, actually along most of the coast. Back to our satellite photos of South Galveston Bay, You can see how a barrier island works. The island is in the bottom portion of the collection. Off to the more upper right, you see Bolivar peninsula. Sometimes the structure is joined to the mainland and you get a peninsula. (There is a TXDOT ferry system that takes you to the peninsula from Galveston. That is a fun ride.) There is a bay on the landward side of the islands  and peninsulas, and of course, the beach fronting on the Gulf of Mexico. This is the typical Texas coast set up and it is those bay systems that give us our abundant seafood. Supposedly, Padre Island in south Texas is the longest barrier island in the world.

The island is joined to the mainland by the causeway (I-45) that can be seen in the 4th row, 4th picture to the right. (You can click on the individual pictures to get a larger view.)

Smithy, I never answered your question about the "spits" in the 3rd row, far right picture. Those are the jetties, long heaps of big blocks of Texas pink granite that protect the entrance into the bay. That entrance is the Houston Ship Channel. The jetties are a popular fishing spot, both by walking out on them and from boats. The presence of all of that rock adds another habitat for sea life that wouldn't naturally be there. Our coast doesn't have rocks.

I am heading for the soutwestern tip of the island which is in the very bottom left. That is San Luis Pass and is just a pass from the bay to the Gulf. It can be treacherous when the tide is running. We lose a few wade fishermen a year.

Several have asked about open land. On my way there, I thought I would show you a typical "pasture." This is very common on the coastal plain, mixed grassland with a stray nubbin of a tree here or there. If there is a creek it will have real trees and you might even find a native pecan tree in those little strips of woodland. There is usually a ditch next to the road that gives you a chance for wetland plants like cat tails. There are a few wild rose brambles out there.

Running along Stewart Road along the more bay side of the island there is a lot of open land, some used for grazing, but some just let go. This is where things get nuts. In this one picture, there is wild rose, elderberry, honeysuckle and horsemint. And that is just what I recognize from the car.

The elderberry blossoms are still too tight. I will have to go back next weekend if I want to eat some. (I do so I probably will.) The roses have no smell at all so I am not going to bother. I will either have to get up real early in the morning (unlikely) or just wait until September/October and see about the rose hips. This particular rose has nice hips. 

There are also the odd clumps of prickly pear. Later, the pears will be this gorgeous fuschia color. They make a spectacular looking, ok tasting jelly if you really want to do your penance doing that. Horsemint makes another appearance.

Right before you go over the San Luis Pass toll bridge (to Surfside beach and Freeport) you can veer off to the right to get to the beach and bayside. I am going to the bayside first and see what I can find. The back side is typically salt marsh and a rich source of bait fish, shrimp and crabs if you are handy with a cast net. A couple of guys gave it a try while I was there, had little luck in that spot and moved on. They told me that they were fishing on the beach side and had gotten a good bit of shrimp early in the day.

Tromping around I spot an interesting clump of weeds.

Can it be . . . Could I be so lucky? It is! It is samphire! My favorite thing in the whole world. It is the light green stuff at the bottom.

I am munching on some of it as I type this. It is very crisp and succulent, has a salty and very slightly tart flavor. When it is young like this, the fibrous core down the middle of the leaves hasn't formed yet so it is a true delight. Later in the year it will darken in color and get a reddish cast in the fall. I have heard of folks sauteing it but I can't imaging destroying that wonderful texture. When we have a lot of it, we include some of the leaves in a salad. I consider a salad with samphire one of the true luxuries in the world.

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Click here to view the rest of fifi's second Foodblog, from May 2005.

We had a thread on samphire a while back, here.

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Admin note: I merged the thread into the pre-existing one in the Cooking forum.

Soba

[fifi]

Actually, I added to the on-going Texas topic and corrected the species names for the plants in question here.

I can't imagine anyone trying to cook this culinary wonder. It is so sublime as it is in its crisp and salty self. To wilt it is a crime in my mind.

[jdtofbna]

I first ate samphire as a garnish on a bowl of lovely mussels at a restaurant near St. Austell in Cornwall. I guess Harry's in Atlanta is the closest I could come to finding this tasty delight in Nashville?

Edited February 22, 2006 by jdtofbna (log)

[jdtofbna]

Wonder of wonders, I just found them here in Nashville at Wild Oats....for the startling price of $18 per pound

[Bill Miller]

We blanched some sea beans last nite and served with sauted' Dover Sole and a caprese salad. Wonderful warm spring dinner with a generic sauvignon blanc. The sea beans need nothing but some brown butter--don't overcook--they supposedly turn real salty and fishy. Just blanch and serve with the butter poured over. I' really am impressed with them and will try raw in some sort of salad next.

[Christopher Haatuft]

I guess its like a type of seaweed? I blanched some lokal seaweed here, but I didnt like it to much...

[Taubear]

What on earth/sea is a sea bean??

[Susan in FL]

What, nautical haricots verts?!

There's a photo of what I know as sea beans in amongst the photos on this page.

[Bond Girl]

It's too salty when it's not blanched.

[rlibkind]

Sea beans are not a seaweed. Rather, they are a plant that grows near the sea, and do take up a bit of salt. They are more properly known as salicornia, more commonly known as samphire or glasswort. A couple different varieties are consumed in different parts of the world. As Bill noted in starting the current topic, they go great with seafood. You might also want to try them tossed in a vinegar pickle (just a touch of sugar added to vinegar and water).

[ludja]

David Lebovitz has a nice recent entry on his blog about fresh salicorne pickled with vegetables and thyme. Interestingly, he mentions yet another name for salicorne used in France: “haricots de mer” or "green beans of the sea".

...

After considering their vinegary, cornichon-like taste, I mentioned to Monsieur Dion that they'd be good served alongside or atop something fatty and meaty, like pâte or a rich smear of rillettes, and before I could finish my sentance (which, as a rule, takes much longer for me in French than in English), he produced a platter bearing slices of crusty baguette spread with rillettes de porc, topped with a piece of salicorn. The next day, I used a few slices of toasted pain aux ceriales to make my own sandwich layered with juicy, vibrant-yellow slices of tomato, cured salmon with lots of fragrant dill, a thin layer of coarse-grained mustard, all finished with a squeeze of puckery lemon juice. I topped them off with a few 'sprigs' (I guess they're sprigs, although in French, there's probably a special word used exclusively for 'sprigs' of les salicornes.)

Click here to read the entire entry.

[Rebecca263]

This is a food I would like to try before I lose my salivary glands. Anyone know of a current source in the NJ/NYC area?

[SuzySushi]

Update on glasswort/salicorne/sea bean/samphire/sea asparagus:

It's now being aquacultured in Kahuku on Oahu's North Shore (see article). Besides being served in upscale local restaurants, it's available as "sea asparagus" in the produce or seafood departments in Don Quijote (formerly Daiei), Marukai, and Down-to-Earth.

We picked some up at Don Quijote's main store the other day. Raw, it was overly salty and bitter, but blanched 1 minute and refreshed under cold water, it was wonderful! I'd buy this as a vegetable any day!

Down-to-Earth was also doing a demo with sea asparagus in a Japanese rice vinegar & sugar dressing. Yum!!!

[paulraphael]

I've been experimenting with these. There's something really cool about them. But the saltiness can be a bit overwhelming.

I've tried them raw, blanched, blanced and stir fried, and blanched and roasted.

Are there any tricks to leach some extra salt? I want to preserve the green and the crunch.

A little acid (citrus) seems to mellow the saltiness just a bit. So does a little butter. But I'd like to go farther.

[SuzySushi]

Grown here... and marketed as "sea asparagus."

Blanch in boiling water first to leach out some of the salt. You can also soak them in several changes of cold water it they're still salty.

One way I like them is chopped and mixed with chopped fresh tomatoes, kind of a lomi-lomi sea asparagus.

[Magictofu]

I like to eat them raw when walking along rocky beaches in the St-Lawrence estuary.

They overcook easily.