Recipe for Seafood Bake with Seaweed
At-A-Glance
- I don’t usually post recipes, but shrimp and crab on rice, baked like a seafood casserole, and eaten in seaweed snacks? This seafood bake is scrumptious and fun to eat.
- This is a special dish will feed 4-6 happy people, and the leftovers are also very good.
My friend Sonia is a great cook and she is teaching me Asian cooking. This recipe, her version of a Japanese sushi or seafood bake is scrumptious and fun to eat with seaweed wraps. No fork or knife is needed, just a teaspoon to get each bite-sized serving from a communal dish tha’s placed on a piece of seaweed snack. While this recipe can serve 4-6 people, I usually make it for 2-4, because I want leftovers (that microwave well). With four diners, each person can have their own sovereign corner.
This dish is similar to a sushi bake; however, what makes sushi rice different from regular rice is the addition of rice wine vinegar and sugar. Since this is a reflux-friendly recipe, we are leaving out the vinegar. But fish on rice, even baked, is sushi-like. (If you want to make a sushi bake, premix a teaspoon of sugar in one tablespoon of rice wine vinegar; and when the rice is done, put the vinegar/sugar in as you fluff the rice.)
Seafood bake is sometimes intended to be an inexpensive dish, it can be, but then only use imitation (faux) crab, made from Alaskan pollock and King crab. Sonia‘s recipe, however, includes shrimp and real crabmeat, and this raises the cost by about $20 dollars. Her recipe includes 8 ounces of real crabmeat and ¾ pound of shrimp. You can use cooked shrimp or fresh, peeled, and deveined shrimp. I personally prefer the fresh shrimp, because I think it gives a better crunch.
This recipe contains some ingredients that you may not have, or even be familiar with; these are gimme seaweed snacks (cheaper in store than Amazon), Kewpie mayonnaise, and Furikake. The latter is a seasoning that is sprinkled on before baking; it’s a combination of a sesame seed, seaweed, and sugar. All of these items can be found in the International aisle of your supermarket in the Asian section. This dish does contain some cream cheese and kewpie mayonnaise; however, per person, this amount of fat is acceptable for refluxers.
Each person gets one package of seaweed and when open you’ll see the thin rectangular seaweed leaves. A spoon of the seafood bake is placed in the seaweed, wrapping the contents, and eaten with your fingers. The seaweed has a really unique and great texture. You can do a one-bite or a two-bite wrap.
RECIPE
Preparation time is about 45 minutes. For the bake, I recommend a small 2-quart Pyrex dish or something oven-safe of similar size; I measured mine and it is 7” by 11”.
Ingredients
For the rice
1 cup of sushi or Aborio rice
1½ cups water
For the seafood mix
14 ounces (one package) of imitation crab meat
8 ounces ( 1 cup) of real crab (claw is usually the least expensive)
¾ pound of fresh peeled and deveined shrimp or cooked and peeled shrimp also fine
¼ cup Kewpie mayonnaise
¼ cup low-fat cream cheese
Note: the less expensive option uses faux crab only, about 18-20 ounces (1½ 14 oz. packages) for this recipe; any leftover fish with the Kewpie is great for sandwiches
Condiments
Furikake
Sriracha (optional)
Directions
Put the rice and water in a rice cooker or sauce pan and bring to a boil, then cover tightly with a lid and reduce the heat to “low” for 12 minutes. Then turn off the heat and let sit 5-10 minutes before fluffing.
When you cover the rice, turn on your oven and preheat to 350-degrees.
While the rice is cooking coarse-dice the crabmeat, shrimp, and faux crabmeat. Then, in a small bowl with a spoon merge the cream cheese and the Kewpie mayonnaise until smooth. Next, combine the cheese/Kewpie mix with the fish and toss until the fish is lightly covered and the three fish are evenly dispersed. If more mix is needed to moisten/cover the fish, just use Kewpie mayo.
Once the rice is fluffed, use all of it to evenly cover the bottom of the Pyrex baking dish. The rice layer should be even and about ½ inch thick. Next, drizzle a small amount of Kewpie on the rice in a back-and-forth pattern, the evenly and lightly sprinkle with Furikake.
Add the fish mix evenly covering the rice; then sprinkle on Furikake lightly and evenly; and then drizzle a small amount of Kewpie on the rice in a back-and-forth pattern.
Bake at 350-degrees for 10 minutes if you use cooked shrimp and for12 minutes if you use fresh shrimp.
When the bake is baked and removed from the oven, Sonia’s original recipe calls for you to drizzle Sriracha on top “to taste”… I don’t, and if you have reflux, let your conscience be your guide.
Each person gets a pack of a seaweed treats. You take one leaf out, and with a spoon pick your corner, get a teaspoon or so of fish and rice and put it on a now U-shaped piece of seaweed snack … and enjoy.
For more information about diagnosis and treatment of respiratory reflux, see my books on Amazon: Dropping Acid: The Reflux Diet Cookbook & Cure and Dr. Koufman’s Acid Reflux Diet. And if you would like to schedule a virtual consultation with me, you can book online.
