Chai Spice Carrageen Pudding

Carrageen is such a useful seaweed, I had to find a simpler recipe. Marie Power suggested boiling milk with it and straining the carrageen out to make a pudding. We only buy nondairy milk like oat or almond so I decided to try a nondairy chai spiced pudding.

The reason the carrageen looks so dark here and so light in my last post with it is because drying seaweed in the sun bleaches it and this one was freshly foraged.

Cooking method

I often make myself chai tea by combining nondairy milk with chai mulling spices from a package I have, fresh ginger, a few cracked cardamom pods, freshly ground black pepper and black tea. I usually add turmeric paste as well but decided to keep it simpler with the seaweed. I made a double batch of my typical chai but with seaweed instead of tea to keep it decaf.

I rinsed the carrageen and placed it in a small sauce pan with 2 cups of almond milk and the spices. I brought it to a boil and simmered it for about 20 minutes, until the carrageen seemed soft and wilty and the almond milk had reduced a bit. Then I turned off the heat, added maple syrup and vanilla and strained the liquid into two glass jars.

The taste & texture

After refrigerating the jars for a couple hours (I saved them for dessert), I took them out and served them. The consistency was firm and gelatinous but not like jello. It didn’t bounce and reshape but was more of a soft solid that you could easily cut through with a spoon. More like the cube jellies in a boba milk tea than the black tapioca pearls, if you get me.

It worked remarkably well and did not have any strong seaweed flavor, just a hint of seaweed flavor if you’re really looking for it. There were also tiny flecks of green but they didn’t stand out much among the brown specs from the spices and pepper. I could probably have put a lot more milk and refrigerated it for less time for a less solidified pudding. Hurry for success!