Dashi

A stock made in twenty minutes without boiling, where every temperature is deliberate.

Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish.

Ingredients

• 20 g kombu
• 30 g katsuobushi
• 1.2 litres cold water

Method

1. NOTHING HERE IS EVER BOILED, and that single rule is the whole recipe. Kombu boiled turns the stock slimy and faintly bitter; katsuobushi boiled makes it sour and fishy. Both give everything they have below a simmer, and the entire method is about getting them out before the water catches up.
2. DO NOT WASH THE KOMBU. The white bloom on it is not dirt and it is a good part of the flavour. Wipe it with a dry cloth only if it is visibly gritty.
3. Kombu into the COLD water and left to soak 30 minutes, or several hours in the fridge if you have them. It opens and softens and begins releasing before any heat is applied.
4. Bring it up slowly over a low heat -- ten minutes to reach about 60C, which is barely warm to a finger.
5. LIFT THE KOMBU OUT BEFORE THE WATER SIMMERS. Small bubbles at the base of the pan is the signal, around 70C. If it reaches a simmer with the kombu in, start again; nothing later recovers it.
6. Bring the water to just below boiling, then take it OFF the heat entirely.
7. Katsuobushi in, all at once, and pushed under with a chopstick. Leave it 2 minutes while it sinks.
8. DO NOT STIR AND DO NOT SQUEEZE. Strain through a cloth and let it drip; wringing the flakes pushes bitterness through with the liquid, and that is the commonest fault in a stock that otherwise went right.
9. It should be pale gold, clear, and smell of the sea rather than of fish.
10. Keep the spent kombu and flakes -- simmered in fresh water for ten minutes they give a second, rougher stock for simmering vegetables.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes