Laverbread and dillisk

Ireland V Wales (source: theguardian.com)

It's Ireland v Wales in this year's Six Nations rugby tournament today. With that in mind I've decided to try my hand at a Welsh national dish as well as throwing in an Irish delicacy to balance the books. The Welsh dish I'm talking about is laverbread. Technically speaking it is not a bread at all as its main ingredients are laver (nori) and oatmeal. The Welsh would include it in a Welsh breakfast, with seafood or as a spread on bread or toast.

Source: goweruk.com

Laverbread spread

 I wanted to keep in line with Welsh tradition so I used streaky bacon in my recipe. For a healthy alternative vegetarian dish click on the following link: http://www.ehow.com/how_2316069_make-laver-bread.html

Laverbread cakes
Ingredients:
50g dried laver (nori)
Oatmeal - I used up about 200g, recipes on the net suggest using 25% oatmeal to laver. I used more than that to make it less sticky.
2 crushed cloves of garlic
1 pack of streaky bacon
Pepper

Laverbread mix

Roast Laverbread

I broke up the dried nori sheets into pieces and boiled them in water until they had a texture similar to mushy spinach. I cut up the streaky bacon into small bits and fried it. I then mixed all of the ingredients listed above in a bowl and rolled the laverbread into small cake shapes before frying the first batch in the bacon fat. The rest of the laverbread cakes were oven roasted. I prefer the oven roast ones though the tradition is to fry them.

Roast dillisk crisps
This is very simple to make. Rub some olive oil lightly into dillisk which has been chopped into small pieces. Sprinkle with linseed and sesame seed and roast in high temperature for a few minutes.

Fried dillisk crisps
This is also a simple and quick dish. Fry the dillisk in sesame oil in a pan for a few minutes until it turns brown. If you over fry it, it will turn black so avoid that. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and pepper if you wish.

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