Ingredient

Nori

Nori is a red seaweed shredded, pressed into thin sheets and dried, in a process closely resembling papermaking. It is toasty, faintly sweet and deeply savoury, it is what sushi is wrapped in, and it is far more useful than its association with sushi suggests.

Crisp and limp are the whole story

Nori is hygroscopic — it pulls moisture out of the air enthusiastically — and a sheet goes from crackling to leathery within minutes of being exposed. Almost every practical fact about handling it follows from that.

It is why nori comes in sealed packets with a desiccant sachet, and why the sachet should stay in once you open it. It is why a hand roll is assembled and eaten immediately while a sushi roll made an hour ago has a chewy wrapper. And it is why the Japanese convenience-store onigiri has that elaborate plastic wrapper that keeps the nori separated from the rice until you pull the tab — the whole packaging exists to solve this one problem.

A limp sheet is easily revived: pass it briefly over a low flame or a hot dry pan, a second or two a side, until it tightens and darkens slightly and smells toasty. Most nori sold is already toasted (yaki-nori), and re-toasting still improves it noticeably.

What to do with it besides sushi

• Torn over rice, with soy and a little sesame oil. The simplest good meal in this file.
• Onigiri. Rice balls with a filling, wrapped in a strip of nori just before eating.
• Crumbled over noodles, soup or eggs as a savoury finish.
• Furikake — a rice seasoning of crumbled nori, sesame seeds, salt and dried fish or shiso. Easy to make and endlessly useful.
• In a butter. Blitzed into softened butter with a little soy, it is exceptional on grilled fish or steak.
• Wrapped around fried chicken or fish, which is a common Japanese treatment.
• As a crisp on its own, brushed with sesame oil, salted and briefly baked.
• Blitzed into a powder and used as a savoury seasoning where you want depth without a recognisable seaweed flavour.

Grades and kinds

Yaki-nori

Plain toasted nori. What you want for sushi and for general use.

Ajitsuke-nori

Seasoned nori — soy, mirin, sometimes sugar. Sold in small snack packets. Good with rice, wrong for sushi.

Grade

Judged by colour and evenness. Good nori is very dark, almost black-green, glossy, and uniform. Pale, greenish, patchy sheets are lower grade and taste flatter and fishier.

Shape

Full sheets for rolls, half sheets for hand rolls, pre-cut strips for onigiri.

Aonori

A different thing — powdered green seaweed sprinkled on okonomiyaki and takoyaki, not pressed into sheets.

Rolling with it

The practical points, if you are making maki.

1. Use a full sheet, shiny side down, rough side up. The rice grips the rough side.
2. Wet your hands but keep the nori dry. Water on the sheet makes it tear and go slack.
3. Leave a clear strip of nori along the far edge with no rice on it. That strip is what seals the roll.
4. Do not overfill. Almost every home roll fails because there is too much in it to close.
5. Roll firmly, using the mat to compress rather than just to curl, and dab the bare strip with a little water to seal.
6. Cut with a very sharp, damp knife, wiping it between cuts. A blunt knife drags and tears the nori.

Common questions