dashi

Made a nice Japanese dinner tonight. T'was a great opportunity to make dashi broth for the first time. Dashi is the equivalent of chicken or veggie stock in Japan. It's made of three ingredients - kombu, bonito flakes and water. Kombu is a dried seaweed and bonito flakes are made from dried bonito (mackerel family) which is then shaved into thin flakes. Bonito gives the broth it's saltiness and a slight smokiness. Kombu add's the umami. The process couldn't be much easier. Bring the kombu to almost a boil in the water, remove, add the bonito flakes, steep for 30-60 seconds, strain. Much quicker than chicken stock that's for sure - and tons of flavor too.

I used to the dashi to make a thin soup broth that also had sake, mirin, soy and sugar. Then I placed a nice piece of cooked Hake (similar to Cod) in the broth and served it with a bit of fresh ginger and scallions.

The meal was topped off with some cold soba noodles, served with a dipping sauce (didn't make this from scratch, though it's very similar to the broth above, just more concentrated) and a cucumber salad with a miso/yuzu dressing.