Dashi
10 June 2008
Dashi, the Japanese fish-based soup stock, is ubiquitous in Japanese cuisine. Not only is it the basis of most Japanese soups, but it is also often used as an ingredient for different sauces. Other than "western" kinds of soup stock, which have to be simmering for hours, dashi is - provided you find the right ingredients - really simple to prepare. So it is actually worth giving it a try rather than buying instant powder.
There are many different recipes for dashi, featuring different kind of seaweed and dried fish. Kombu seaweed and bonito flakes are probably among the most common ingredients, though. The concentration of the dashi is of course a function of the amount of bonito flakes as well as the cooking time, both of which can vary strongly from recipe to recipe, depending on taste and purpose. The following recipe for example results in a rather strong dashi, which is more apt for sauces than for soups.
How To Do It
| for about 300ml dashi |
| a hand full of kombu seaweed |
| about 10 tablespoons of dried bonito flakes |
| 500ml water |
Soak the kombu seaweed in the cold water of about 10 minutes. Now start heating the water and remove the kombu seaweed right at the moment the water starts boiling, so it does not leave too much of its quite particular taste. Then add the bonito flakes to the water and boil for about 15 minutes. Drain through a sieve to remove the bonito flakes. There you have your dashi!
