This was one of those culinary experiments that took me to a scrumptious place, and I just had to share it. After spending last weekend camping in Provincetown. We stopped at a little vegan place called the Grab ‘N Go Health Bar. I had a dish called a “Green Mermaid” which was avocado and fresh greens wrapped in nori. It was simple, refreshing and delicious!
I tried to recreate it, except I toasted my nori sheets over the stove. I also added a lime vinaigrette. Oh, and I made it very much not vegan with the addition of crabmeat sautéed with pea tendrils in Amish roll butter. (Apologies to my vegan readers. Leave out the butter and crabmeat and you’re back to vegan status.) Vegan or not, I hope you’ll love this one as much as I do!
Here are the ingredients:
- 4 nori sheets (optional if you’d like to just make a salad version, which also works)
- a few leaves of lettuce, coarsely chopped
- Lime vinaigrette dressing (see below)
- 2 avocadoes
If making the non-vegan version, you’ll also need these ingredients:
- 8 oz Jordan Brother’s crabmeat, cleaned of any shell parts
- 1 box of pea tendrils, snipped into 2 inch pieces
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- 2 tbsp Amish roll butter, divided
- 1 tbsp olive oil
For the non-vegan version, cut up your box of pea tendrils in to bite-sized pieces (about 2 inches long).
Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil with 1 tbsp of butter in a saute pan over a medium flame.
Add your minced garlic cloves and a little over half of your pea tendrils. Once the tendrils begin to wilt down a bit, you can add the remaining batch of tendrils to the pan. As the second batch of tendrils just begins to wilt, add in your crabmeat and 1 more tbsp of butter). Season with salt to taste. Saute until the tendrils with the crabmeat just until the crab is heated through (2-3 minutes).
The pea tendrils and crabmeat are great by themselves, or you can add them on top of a salad with avocado and lettuce tossed in lime vinaigrette. 
Basically, to toast a nori sheet, you just take the sheet and very carefully and quickly pass it over the open flame (flipping one side and then the other), repeating until it starts to shrink up only very slightly, and you can smell the aroma of toasted nori. You don’t want it charred or totally crispy, but just enough to enhance the flavor and make it less chewy to bite.
For the vegan version, avocado and lime vinaigrette-tossed lettuce is great. For the non-vegan version, get ready to add the crabmeat and pea tendril mixture from above.
Lay your ingredients on one side of the nori and roll. (No need to use a bamboo sushi roller such as when making maki rolls, it can be just hand-tightened and looser). Serve with the seam down, and cut on the bias.
Serve with more lettuce and lime vinaigrette on the side. I used a Newman’s own bottled lime vinaigrette as I had some left in the fridge from another adventure, but it’s pretty easy to make your own as well.