Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Ichiban-dashi, the first step

If you ever want to make seriously good Japanese food, you need to make seriously good dashi. Dashi is the Japanese word for soup stock, and it always has three basic ingredients, katsuoboshi, kombu, and water. Dashi can be used in nearly every Japanese sauce, soup, and dish there is! Different ingredients can be added to alter the flavor, shiitake mushrooms, niboshi, and many different types of dried fish. The dashi I will teach you is simple, but very tasty.

You will need
  • 4L of water (~17 cups)
  • 20g kombu (~.7 oz)
  • 15g katsuobushi (~.5 oz)
  • Pot capable of holding your quantity
  • Bowl capable of holding your quantity
  • Strainer
Instructions
1. Rinse and soak kombu for 30minutes-6 hours*
2.Simmer kombu for 30 minutes

3. Add katsuobushi and simmer for 15 minutes
4. Remove the Aku**

                                     5. Strain the dashi***
     
*The longer you let it soak, the more flavor is imparted into the dashi, but after about 6 hours, it will become slimy from the kombu
**Aku is the boiled blood, and other bitter flavorings (not only from meats some vegetables make some) in small portions you can skip this step as it does not greatly change the flavor
***for those who are on a budget or don't want to waste you can save the kombu and katsuoboshi to make niban-dashi, I'll have the recipe up soon!

If you want to make a different amount, you can easily change the amounts listed, but be aware that the time it takes to bring to a boil and simmer will be different. Enjoy!!!

10 comments:

  1. VERY interesting recipe, thanks for the information. I don't even know what it would taste like, never had a Kombu flavored dish before.

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  2. i love this blog, first decent cooking blog i found.

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  3. I don't even know where I'd get half of this stuff, but it looks good. There's an Asian market near my house so I might see if I can find the ingredients to make this one.

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  4. Wow, very instructive post. Once I'm out of University catered halls with no cookers, this blog will be of massive use to me.

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  5. That personally ooks totally disgusting to me, I usually enjoy Asian cuisine, but some of it I just dont think I could swallow.

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  6. Wow this looks great, I'm not a chef but I am a cook since I cook every meal in my home for my father and brother, so knowing new recipes is great. Today I made whole green beans with caramelized onions and cranberries...tasted great!

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