/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>10778657

Iriko is definitely a better option than katsuobushi, but do keep in mind that iriko too, can go-off rather quickly for a dried product. Removing the head and guts is good practice, but it's not quite necessary if you're "cold brewing" your dashi. I find that the safest way to make easy dashi is to let the ingredients steep in cold water overnight in the fridge, almost in the same method as cold brewing coffee. This is especially true if you're not using katsuobushi, where bringing it to at least 90C is necessary to fully bring out the aroma.

A good ratio for miso soup is 1 miso : 15 dashi.


For dashi, I prefer to think in terms of percentages... for example:

1000 cc water : 40 g konbu : 3 g iriko

would translate to dashi with 4% konbu and 3% iriko.

The point I made in an earlier post is pretty important... about how you need to experiment with the konbu that's available to you. Cheap sea kelp barely gives out any flavor while turning your stock instantly green, while aged, grade 1 ma-konbu or rishiri-konbu must be soaked for hours to fully extract its flavor. A somewhat simplified indication of good quality konbu is how thick it is. If you can rip it apart with your hands, you can probably get away with soaking it for less than an hour in room temperature.


If you really want to be the aficionado to experiment with truly authentic Japanese flavors (or if you have a food blog and want to attract views >.>), you can buy a katsuobushi shaving box "kezuribako," or "katsuobushi kanna," and shave the flakes from whole dried bonito loins. Aged bonito loins last indefinitely in cool, dry conditions, while non-aged bonito loins last a few months in similar conditions. Very few restaurants in Japan do this, and they usually do this only for select customers (less than 15 a day). You can buy all of these in various Rakuten websites, and they do ship it internationally.