Home Style Japanese Dashi Stock
Prep Time
5 mins
Cook Time
30 mins
Total Time
35 mins
This method of making dashi is not how professionals make dashi, as they make two lots of dashi out of one set of dashi ingredients. I find that this home style method is more practical and still flavoursome, as the ingredients are the same as awase-dashi (professional method). The cooking time does not include the 30 minutes required to soak the konbu. Please also see Varieties of Dashi Stock for other types of dashi recipes.
Serves: 400 ml (13.5oz)
Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)
- 500 ml water
- 5cm (2") x 5cm (2") strip of konbu (dried kelp)
- 15g (0.5oz) katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes)
Instructions
-
Gently wipe any dust off konbu if necessary using dry towel or paper towel. Do not wash or remove white powder stuck on the surface of konbu by scraping it off as it is the umami (旨味).
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Add the water in a pot and soak the konbu for about 30 minutes if you have time. If you don’t have time, don’t worry.
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Place the pot over medium heat. When small bubbles start appearing in the pot, reduce heat to minimum and cook for about 10 minutes.
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Add katsuobushi and turn the heat up to medium. Cook for about 10 minutes.
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Turn the heat off and wait until katsuobushi sinks to the bottom of the pan.
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Line a few layers of muslin or a paper towel over in a sieve and pour all the contents in the pan to into the sieve. Let it drain naturally, lightly squeezing the katsuobushi (Note 1).
Recipe Notes
1. Do not squeeze the katsuobushi too hard as it will produce a slight bitterness.
2. You cannot keep dashi very long even in the fridge as it loses flavour. 2-3 days is the max, I would think. Freezing will also lose the falvour but if you don’t mind losing it, you could freeze the stock.
3. If you would like to make dashi from store bought dashi pack or seasoning, just follow the instructions on the packet which should tell you how much you need for certain amount of water.