What is dashi? And How can it make food So umami rich?

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Plus dashi recipes for you to try at home.

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Content

1. What is Umami?

2. About dashi

3. How to make dashi

4. Recipe with dashi

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1. What is umami?

First of all, let me talk about Umami. Umami is one of five basic tastes. There’s sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. It’s what some people call the “savoury” flavour, and it plays an important role in making food taste delicious. For example, umami brings the deliciousness of vegetables, neutralizes “fishy” smells and makes sour flavours more mild. Dashi (broth) is one thing that is rich in creates umami.

I will explain about what food has rich umami substances. Actually, there are Glutamic acid, inosine and guanine known as umami substances. You can find glutamic acid in kelp and vegetables, inosine in fish and meat and guanine in dried shiitake. There are lots of foods you can find inosine but dried bonito (known as katsuobushi), pork and chicken are just some of the ingredients with inosine that are also made into dashi. Mixing more than two umami-rich ingredients gives it more depth. For example, the combination of kelp and katsuobushi brings Japanese tastes of umami.

2. About dashi

Dashi is a broth used in miso soup, udon, ramen, soba, nimono (simmered vegetables) and many other Japanese foods to accentuate a savoury umami-rich flavour. It’s arguably the most-used ingredient in Japanese cuisine. It may seem a bit difficult to make from scratch but it’s very easy to make and so you can bring your dishes to the next level at home. There are many different types of dashi, and every household has a preference in which dashi is used. It’s interesting to try other people’s home cooking to see the difference.

Let me explain how to make and use this unsung hero in your at-home Japanese cooking.

The most common dashi in Japan

In Japanese cuisine, the most common form of dashi is a simple broth from oceanic kombu (edible kelp). A combination of kombu and katsuobushi is called awase dashi and is most commonly recognised as the Japanese flavour of umami. By changing ingredients included in dashi, you can make the dishes taste more like Chinese food or Western food. There are many other different kinds of dashi such as iriko dashi made from dried anchovies and shiitake dashi made from dried shiitake, but we will talk about kombu and katsuobushi dashi.

3. How to make dashi

Kombu

There are two methods: cold or hot brew.

Cold brew

Cold brew - Kombu dashi

The cold brew method is pretty hands-off. All you need is to put 1L of water and 1-2 kombu strips in a large bottle. Let it steep for 2 or more hours. It keeps in the fridge for up to one week.

Hot brew

Hot brew - Kombu dashi

If you need dashi right away, the hot brew method is the best for you. Just place two sheets of kombu and 1L of water in a medium pot to gently bring out the flavour. Take it off the heat once it reaches boiling temperature.

Katsuobushi 

Katsuobushi dashi

Boil 1L of water, turn off the heat and put 30g of bonito flakes into the boiled water. Leave 1-2 mins until bonito flakes sink. Filter to just the broth.

Awase dashi

Awase dashi

The base of awase dashi is kombu dashi made from dried kelp. You can cold brew or hot brew the kombu to make the dashi. Add 10g dried bonito flakes to the kombu dashi. Once boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for 30 seconds and turn off the heat. Steep for 10 mins and filter it.

Dashi shortcut

Kelp powder from Port of Plenty

Sometimes you don’t have enough time to make dashi from scratch. On these occasions, you can use dashi powder. We recommend 1 gram of this kelp powder is for 500ml soup or water.

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4. Recipes with dashi

1. Miso soup

Cooking time: 10 minutes
Serves 1

Ingredients

• 20g miso

• 180ml dashi

• 1/8 packet of silken tofu, cubed

• Dried seaweed (to preference)

• Spring onion (optional)
  
  

Method

1. Combine 180ml of dashi, add tofu and seaweed.

2. Once the water is boiled and the ingredients are cooked, turn the heat off. Add miso, melting on the ladle or spoon. Add spring onion.

2. Nimono (simmered vegetables)

Cooking time: 20 minutes
Serves 2

ingrediendts

• ½ carrot

• 60g lotus root, sliced

• 50g burdock root, julienned

• 100g konjac, sliced (can be done with a spoon)

• 100g Shitake
  
  

Seasonings

• 500ml water, combined with 2 tsp of vinegar

• 300ml water

• ½ tsp salt (to boil)

• ½ tsp dashi

• 2 tsp sugar

• 2 tsp mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)

• 2 tsp sesame oil

• 1 tbsp soy sauce
  
  

Method

1. Put burdock into the vinegar water for five minutes and drain

2. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a pan, add burdock, lotus root, carrot and konjac and cook for five minutes

3. Add dashi and 300ml water. Once it comes to a boil, turn heat to low. After adding Shitake, cover and simmer for 10 mins.

4. When the soup reduces to half the liquid, add sugar, soy sauce and sweet sake, cover and simmer for another 10 mins.

   Adapted from: 簡単 根菜の煮物　レシピ・作り方

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Thanks for reading through our dashi article. Hope this article will help you to enjoy cooking meals. It would be happy if you share your cooking or dishes.

See you soon!

Writer: Kohei Shibuya 

References:
What is dashi?
A guide to umami-rich
How to use dashi?
うまみってなんだろう？