Dashi Masterclass – Part 3: Kombu Dashi (Kelp Stock)

September 23, 2015

I hope you enjoyed my last blog and I hope your niban dashi was up to Miso Megs standards! Today Im going to introduce a dish called Kombu dashi, now I know in my previous two blogs Kombu has been quite an important ingredient but in this one it is key as Kombu Dashi is a totally vegetarian stock.
Kombu Dashi is used for lighter, fresher-tasting vegetarian dishes and is also preferred over regular dashi for cooking certain fish and seafood dishes so that it doesnt mask the flavours.

Kombu Dashi Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 strip of Kombu roughly 6 x 20 cm
• 2L of (preferably) filtered water

Method

1. Whenever you use Kombu to make dashi you must always wipe off any grit with a damp, clean cloth but be careful not to wipe off the white, powdery substance.
2. Place the kombu in a pot filled with 2 litres of filtered (if possible) cold water and allow it to sit for one hour.
3. After one hour place the pan over a low heat and slowly bring the water to temperature to 60-65C, again if you do not have a cooks thermometer then look for the point when a little steam is rising but there are only little bubbles forming at the bottom of the pan (non should break the surface of the water). Keep the water at this temperature for 40 minutes.
4. Once the kombu has simmered for 40 minutes you should remove it from the heat and discard of the kombu (or you can keep it and allow it to dry to use in other recipes if you wish).

Your dashi is now ready to use in individual recipes, I hope you've got a dash on Dominoes!

Article by Miso Meg

 Kombu is available to purchase in the sushisushi food section