How to cook authentic DASHI from Kombu and Bonito flakes 〜出汁〜 easy Japanese home cooking recipe

Welcome to Taiji's Kitchen. Today I'm going to show you how to make dashi. Dashi means broth or stock in Japanese. And this is the base of pretty much all Japanese cuisine. It's kind of hard to find a Japanese dish that doesn't use dashi. So that's why it's difficult for the vegetarians to find what to eat in Japan. You usually make dashi out of kombu kelp and bonito flakes. And there are two types of dashi made from these. Ichiban dashi, which means first broth or first stock. And niban dashi, which means second broth or second stock. So with the ichiban dashi, I'm going to make osuimono, which is kind of Japanese version of konsome or the bouillon. Then let's get started. Oh, before I start, I wanted to tell you a little bit about umami. So umami is nowadays considered as the fifth flavor in the traditional nutrition book, whatever. So there were four flavors, which is saltiness, sweetness, bitterness, and sourness. So that was the four. Like some time back, Japanese people thought there must be another flavor. And then they found umami. In 2000, they found a receptor for umami. So now it's officially considered as the fifth flavor. And umami means in Japanese savoriness or deliciousness. Umai means delicious. So if something is delicious, then you say kore wa umai. Then mi means something-ness. So combined umami means deliciousness. And pretty much all food contains umami. But some food contain more umami or more concentrated than the others. Umami consists of amino acid, more specifically glutamic acid, inosinic acid, and glutamic acid. And different food contains these umami components. So I made a little chart on what contains more umami. So you see that people use these to make stock. And you kind of know why something tastes more savory than other vegetable. So pretty much all meat product or animal products contain umami with different amino acid. But also some vegetable like tomato, onion, celery. And that's why they make stock out of these. Or that's why Italian food tastes so good. Because they contain tomatoes. So not only the ingredients, but also Japanese seasoning contain umami. Namely soy sauce and miso. So that's why they have another layer than compared to just using salt or sugar. So I hope you kind of learn something new. And then I'm going to show you how to make dashi. Then let's get started. So these are the ingredients for the dashi. So we have here kombu kelp. Here says kombu. And hiraka. It's where it's from. So this is not a very high quality kombu. High quality kombu is flat. But this is not flattened. And it's rather thin. But this is what I could find. And here this is katsuo bushi. Katsuo bushi which is bonito flake. But this is very expensive. 40 gram package. It costed 6 euro. Which is about 7 or 8 dollars. So I don't make dashi every time when I cook. In Japan we have these kind of dashi pack. So it's kind of like in tea bag. You can just put in water. And then if you boil it then you just get dashi. So I think these are rarely found in outside of Japan. So for my everyday cooking I use this. Katsuo dashi. Bonito flavored seasoning. Because it's too expensive to use this for every dish. I think most family in Japan barely use this for dashi. And probably use this. But today I want to show you how to make authentic right dashi. Then later for the osuimono. I'm going to use tofu and shiitake. And this is radish sprouts for the green. And salt and soy sauce for the seasoning. Then I'm going to show you how to make dashi. So the first thing you want to do when you make dashi. Is that you want to soak the kombu kelp in water. The amount of kombu you want to use for dashi is for two cups of water. You want to use five gram of kombu. So let's see. This is exactly five grams. So I'm gonna soak this in water. I'm gonna cut in half and then soak in water. And this white that's not dirty. That's actually the umami. So you don't want to get rid of it. So if you don't mind you can just cut this up. And then soak directly in water. If you mind it a little bit. Then you want to wet the hand towel a little bit. And then just kind of take that out like so. You never want to wash this. Because this is umami what's around. And ideally you want to soak this in water overnight. At least a couple hours. Because it makes a difference. So I did that last night. And here are two ways. I soaked this in water last night. So this has been soaked in water for about 12-14 hours. And this just an hour ago. I think you can already see in the color. That this is thicker broth than this. I'm just gonna give it a little taste. Okay I kind of smell a little bit of kombu. And let's see. Oh yeah there's a really distinct difference. So I really highly recommend soaking this in water for overnight. Like 12-14-15 hours. For two cup of water five gram of kombu. And then for that I'm going to use 10-15 gram of katsuobushi. Bonito flakes. So I'm going to measure that. So tear. This freshly opened bonito flake has really great aroma. So you might be surprised how much bonito flake you need for the dashi. So different recipes said different things about how much bonito flakes I need. So about 10-15 gram of bonito flake is necessary for the right dashi. So that much bonito flake I need for two cups of water. Then let's start cooking. Let's first make the ichiban dashi. First broth. In a pot I'm going to put in the water from the kombu kelp. I want to put also the kombu kelp inside. And turn the heat to medium. So what you want to do is you want to take out the kombu kelp out of the water. Right before it boils. So about 90 degrees. When you start seeing small bubbles on the bottom then you want to take out. Because when you boil kombu then the bitterness comes out of the kombu. And you don't want that for the first dashi. So you see the small bubble forming on the bottom. A little bit longer and then I'm going to take out the kombu kelp. So it's about 70 degrees. So when you see this bubble then you want to take out the kelp. And then I'm going to let it come to boil. So it's boiling. I'm going to turn the heat off. I'm going to take away from the oven. And then in this I'm going to add the bonito flakes. Everything in. And then I'm going to let it sit like this for two to three minutes. So you don't want to mix this. You want to just let it sit. Let the umami come out. So two minutes has passed. The bonito flake has sunk a little bit. And so I'm going to let this go through a colander. So I have a colander and then over that a kitchen paper. And then I'm going to let it go through very gently. You don't want to squeeze anything out. Just let it drip with gravity. So this is the first dashi. Ichiban dashi. I'm going to give it a little taste. Oh that is really really good. So rich in umami. This is just really really good. So I'm going to make osuimono with this. Then don't throw these away. With these I'm going to make niban dashi, second dashi. And then with the rest again I'm going to make other some small dish. So for the niban dashi I'm going to put back in the bonito flakes. Back in the pot. We're going to use this later. And then also the kelp. So for the niban dashi you want to put half the amount of the water used for the ichiban dashi. So here in this case one cup of water. And then I'm going to heat this high and then let it come to boil. This time we're going to boil this. So it's boiling now. So I'm going to let it boil for two to three minutes. So then I'm going to turn the heat off. I'm going to take out the kombu kelp. Like the first dashi I'm going to let it go through the strainer. And here you can just squeeze this. So let's put in a different pan so that you can see the color. So you clearly see the difference in color. This is ichiban dashi. This is niban dashi. Let's have a little taste. Oh really very aromatic, savory, really really rich. And here I must say it doesn't have the same thick rich aroma. But nonetheless this is still good. Ichiban dashi we use for osuimono because you want to really taste the dashi. Because if you put a lot of seasoning in this then you kind of kill this really rich aroma. Or also for like udon where you can really enjoy the aroma. And then niban dashi. It's not as thick but it contains a little bit bitterness, tanginess maybe. We can use this for other cooking. Today I'm not going to use the niban dashi. Today I'm just going to use the ichiban dashi. And let's see how little it got. We used two cups of water and it's now gone down to a cup and a third. So you kind of want to keep that in mind when you make dashi. Some water gets lost in the process. Today I'm going to use this and make the osuimono. I'm going to turn the heat to medium. And then for the seasoning I'm going to add in half a teaspoon of soy sauce. So that's about half. And then about a quarter of salt. So you don't want to put too much saltiness in this because it's already really rich. If it lacks saltiness then you can always add later. Have a little taste. This is really good. So for the osuimono I'm going to put in shiitake and the tofu. I'm just going to put in and let it cook. I'm going to turn the heat to low because I don't want to overcook. But you want to cook shiitake all the way through because shiitake is actually poisonous when it's raw. So you want to really cook through the shiitake. But you don't want to cook too much because you're going to lose the aroma. So I think this has been cooked through. I'm just going to put in the bowl. Then I'm going to put a little bit of radish sprouts for the condiments. Then it's finished. Okay, let's eat. Itadakimasu! Oh, it already smells really good. Oh my god. Okay, so slurp alert. I'm going to slurp. So if you don't like the sound of slurping, skip this part. This is really just savory. Compared to like American culture where it's about power and strong, and there's no strongness, there's no punch in this. But this very subtle, very quiet happiness goes all around from your taste buds. And then after comes this aroma of bonito, the fish, and the kelp. It's even meditative, I think. The amount of work it gets into the bonito flake is really real. I'm going to put a little link in the description where how they make bonito flakes. It's really a long process, and so you don't have to wonder why it's so expensive. Shiitake. Smashes also perfectly. So shiitake has also some umami. Somehow dry shiitake has more umami than raw shiitake. I don't know where that came from, but that's the way it is. They can also make dashi out of dry shiitake. The tofu. So the silk tofu is also really good. In western culture, they put too much things on the tofu. When it's a good tofu, then you want to taste the soybeans of tofu. And this silk tofu is really good. This is just rich. You can kind of see all the work behind this. But still, you're not overwhelmed. You're just awed by all the work. But still, very subtle. You see the love, so to say. Wow, that was really, really good. That was delicious. Yeah, try yourself. I can just only say that because I can't transfer the taste. So you have to try yourself. If you try yourself, please let me know in the comments. If you have any feedback or requests, please write that in the comments as well. If you like what you saw, please subscribe and let your friends know of my channel. Then, I look forward to see you in the next video. Bye.