Got after the kelp today. I was going to make salsa, relish and pickles, but after the salsa looked so good, I decided to do more of it and not any pickles.
The bull kelp stipes are very interesting. I had peeled some to make pickles, and left the rest with skin on. The pieces with the skin on were so slippery I could barely pick them out of the bowl to put in the food processor. The stipes left behind this clear sort of gelatin coating on the bowls – maybe that’s the stuff they use to thicken ice cream. The recipes called for running the kelp through a grinder, but the old food processor we garage saled seemed to do just fine.
The kelp stipes turned from brown to dark green in the fridge. During cooking, it turns from dark green to a vibrant lime green. The stipe is very fleshy – I’d guess maybe the texture a cross between a cucumber and a grape. It chopped beautifully in the food processor.
It’s been an all day affair, chopping, processing, or canning since 8 ish this morning and getting done now at 830 this evening with the last batch of salsa coming out of the water bath canner. Luckily, this is water bath canning and not pressure canning, as that would stretch it out to another day, at least.