Mashed Potato with Dried Dulse Recipe

I love seaweeds of all kinds in my cookery and this is a new twist on an old classic that uses dried dulse as an ingredient.

Dulse is a seaweed (sea vegetable) that you can buy dried in healthfood stores. Dulse is Palmaria palmata, also known as Purple Laver and is common around the coasts of Britain. It is still used as a wild food in Scotland and Ireland and deserves to be much better known.

This recipe is a new twist on an old favourite of mashed potatoes with dulse, where the dried dulse is fried in oil or butter before being added to the mash rather than being soaked and chopped before adding.

Mashed Potato with Dried Dulse Recipe

Ingredients:
boiling potatoes
7g (1 packet) dried dulse per 1k potatoes
olive oil or butter for frying
salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste

Method:
Bring a pan of unsalted water to a boil. Scrub the potatoes well, but do not peel them. Add the potatoes to the boiling water and continue boiling for about 25 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.

Drain the potatoes, peel them then mash in the pan.

Crumble the dulse as finely as you can. Heat the oil or butter in a pan then add the dulse. Fry gently (do not pre-soak) until the dulse turns a deep yellowish green and becomes crisp.

Turn the dulse mixture into the potato and mash to combine. Add a little more oil or butter if the potatoes are not creamy enough for your liking then work until smooth. Turn into a warmed dish and serve.

If you want more information about dulse, or want to see more dulse recipes, then please visit the Celtnet Wild Foods Guide for Dulse. If you want to learn more about edible seaweed (sea vegetable) see the Celtnet Edible Seaweed (Sea Vegetable) page.

For all the wild food recipes on this blog, see the wild food recipes page.

Find more British recipes on the Recipes from the British Isles page of this blog.