Dashi

Classic ichiban dashi, or "first dashi," needs two ingredients and a few minutes. The cook soaks a strip of konbu (昆布), dried kelp, in water and warms it. The kelp has to come out before the water boils, or the broth turns bitter and slimy. Then the cook takes the pot off the heat and adds a big handful of katsuobushi (鰹節). These are paper-thin flakes of bonito. Makers dry, smoke and ferment the fish until it turns hard as wood. After a minute, the stock goes through a strainer. Kelp brings glutamate and bonito brings inosinate. Together they make a flavour far stronger than either one alone, and this pairing lies at the heart of Japanese cooking.

Other kinds of dashi serve other dishes. Niboshi (煮干し), small dried sardines, give a stronger, fishier stock, popular for miso soup and ramen. Dried shiitake mushrooms make a rich vegetarian dashi. Kelp alone or bonito alone also have their uses. Many cooks do not throw away the used kelp and flakes. They simmer them again into a weaker niban dashi, or "second dashi," for simpler dishes. It is a small everyday act of mottainai, the Japanese dislike of waste.

Few basic techniques are this easy. Soak a palm-sized piece of konbu in a litre of cold water for thirty minutes. Heat it gently until it almost boils, then take out the kelp. Turn off the heat, add a large handful of bonito flakes and wait one minute. Strain the stock through a cloth. Now you have the base for a hundred dishes. Many households today use instant granules called hondashi. Still, fresh dashi takes only minutes and tastes cleaner.