Rika's TOKYO CUISINE: An Easy-peasy Way to Make Dashi

Dining with the Chef!!

Welcome to our show.

Well, It's time to get cooking.

What are you going to show us today, Rika?

This time, we're going to learn how to make dashi, the cornerstone of Japanese cuisine.

Dashi is the foundation of Japanese cuisine.

You can't do without it.

We're going to use it in some recipes.

It's really easy, so everyone can follow along, from beginners to veterans.

The most common type of dashi is made with kombu and katsuobushi.

Dashi determines the flavor of Japanese cuisine.

It may seem hard to make, but Rika's method is stress-free.

Once you know how to make dashi, you're on your way to mastering Japanese cuisine.

Tokyo, an Asian city with the largest metropolitan population in the world, the boundaries between old Japan and futuristic Japan are blurred in this metropolis.

The food here is a fusion of cuisine, not just from around Asia, but around the globe.

In this program, Tokyo-based culinary artist Rika Yukimasa demonstrates the current trends from her own kitchen near Tokyo Bay.

Our co-host is Patrick Harlan, widely known in Japan as Pakkun.

Rika's Tokyo Cuisine.

Today we make dashi broth from scratch!

So today we're going to be focusing on dashi.

Yes.

You hear a lot about Dashi.

It's basically soupstock, but it's the basis, the central ingredient of much of Japanese cuisine.

Exactly.

-Right？
-Yes.

It's all about dashi.

But a lot of us don't know what dashi is.

Yes.

That's why I want to show you these.

Well, these are the ingredients for a Japanese dashi.

Mm hm.

One of the most popular ones is this kombu kelp and dried bonito flakes.

Right.

Another one I want to introduce is this shiitake mushroom.

This one is dried shiitake mushrooms.

And if you're vegetarians, do you want to have a really deep, fragrant of dashi?

I recommend using this.

And this one is Agodashi.

This is flying fish.

-Flying fish?
-Yes.

-Famous in the southern part of Japan.
-Mhm.

Where I'm from - Kyushu.

We use it for ramen soup and everything.

We use this one.

So dashi, just to get us started is basically soup stock.

It's similar to brodo in Italy or bouillon in France.

It's made from simmering or boiling the ingredients in hot water.

But the difference is that it's so much easier to make, right?

Exactly.

There are many reasons.

One of the reason is we have the ingredients of dashi dried and fermented, sometimes pre boiled before the drying.

In the West, in France or Italy or America.

When we're making soup stock, we basically take vegetables or meat or bones and just boil them as long as they are.

Here, so very nice artisans have already prepared the ingredients for us, so it's much faster for the chef to do his or her work.

Yes.

So of all these options, what are we using today?

Today we're using this kombu kelp and also skipjack tuna.

Dried skipjack tuna.

-Katsuobushi.
-Yes.

Kombu and katsuobushi are probably the two main pillars of most dashi.

Great.

Indeed, katsuobushi is an essential ingredient in Japanese cuisine.

To make it, skipjack tuna is boiled, smoked and dried.

It is then fermented and aged for about six months to concentrate its umami flavor.

After being shaved, it becomes the katsuobushi you see sold in stores.

And I notice that you have the original form of the katsuobushi.

Before it's bushi, it's just dried katsuo.

-Right.
-Skipjack tuna.

It's dried and fermented for a long time, then becomes almost like wood.

Isn't that amazing！ I can just sing, and -

That's right.

-You've got yourself a percussion instrument. -Yes. Yes.

When I first saw this, I didn't believe it was fish.

It doesn't look like fish.

It doesn't really smell like fish yet.

But when you shave it, all that amazing aroma comes out.

Right.

My grandma, She used to always mix miso soup out of this.

So every morning I remember the sound of "syu syu syu syu syu syu".

It's almost like a rhythmic sound.

Sure.

-Ooh, looks great!
-Not bad, not bad.

You don't have to just use it in soup. You can eat it.

Actually, this is like a prosciutto ham.

Yeah.

So this is too thick, maybe?

No, it tastes good.

Oh, it is good.

It looks fun, but it takes practice to make thin shavings, so it's probably best to buy katsuobushi.

Rika's recipe for making dashi.

Wipe away any impurities on the surface of the kombu.

Be careful not to remove the white powdery substance, that is all concentrated umami.

Put the kombu in a pot of water and place over heat.

Just warm it up.

Are you going to boil it?

Yes, I'm going to boil it.

And it's important that you take out the kombu once it's boiled.

You don't want to boil the kombu kelp.

You want to take out of this kombu.

And the reason for not boiling the kombu is when you boil the kombu, it makes the soup sticky ...unwanted flavor, umami flavor, which is like a little bit of sweetness from kombu.

I can see the color of the water is changing as well.

Yeah.

And then you start to see the bubbles coming out from Kombu.

Excellent.

Once bubbles start to form, but before it boils, take the kombu out, and turn off the heat.

Next, add the katsuobushi to the kombu stock.

Put a strainer in a pot and place the katsuobushi inside.

Mmm. I love how katsuobushi starts to move in the heat.

Yeah, it's kind of dancing.

Dancing fish flakes.

Let the katsuobushi steep for 7-8 minutes without stirring, if you don't, it will cloud the dashi and produce unwanted flavors.

Okay. So katsuo dashi is ready.

Look at this golden color.

Isn't it beautiful?

Wow.

Yes, you could just give me a little cup of that to drink, and I'd be a happy clam.

I love dashi soup.

And what's important is you don't want to squeeze out all the juice out all katsuobushi, because then it's not going to be clear.

We like this clear looking soup.

Sure.

Two key points to remember when making dashi.

Remove the kelp before the dashi boils.

Also, avoid squeezing the katsuo-bushi.

Follow these points, and you'll have a clear, golden dashi.

Simply adding salt and soy sauce is all it takes to turn the dashi into a high-quality broth.

Oh, it smells so great.

Smells the smoky, rich katsuo flavor, aroma and the kelp umami...

you can almost smell it so good. Itadakimasu.

You would not believe how rich this is.

It's like drinking silk.

It's that smooth.

Oh, it's so good.

And it only took, you know, five, 10 minutes.

And it's.

It transports you into a land of luxury.

It's that good.

This is incredible.

Now that we have delicious dashi, we can make various kinds of nimono.

-Have you heard of nimono?
-Oh, yes.

Nimono is boiled stuff, literally.

It's delicious food simmered in this dashi broth.

-Yes.
-Okay.

But it's not just nimono, right?

We can very use our dashi for various foods.

Yes.

Do you change it somehow when you use the dashi?

Exactly. We change the ratio to dashi.

You just use the same ratio of this and times seven is what we are making nikujaga.

Okay.

For Nikujaga, it's seven to One, to one, to one.

-Yes.
-That's easy.

I can remember that.

Nikujaga, by the way, is one of those hearty, wholesome, home cooked meals which everyone loves.

Yeah, Especially in winter.

It's so good.

My daughter's favorite is nikujaga.

Yeah.

No kidding.

Yeah. You hear that sometimes.

What's your mom's favorite food?

-A lot of people will say nikujaga.
-Yeah.

And then when you have guests, what we do is we do mentori.

If you do it, and then the edge won't crumble.

So you will have beautiful jagaimo.

Right.

If you have these sharp edges on your potatoes, they sort of crumble when you boil them.

And that makes the potatoes look a little worse.

But it also makes her soup sort of it fills it up with these little pieces of potato, so soup doesn't look as good.

Cut the other ingredients into bite-size pieces.

Okay. And then lastly, I placed this thinly sliced beef.

In Japan, we have sliced...really thinly sliced beef or pork everywhere.

-You can buy it at any supermarket.
-Yes.

But if it's difficult for you, you can just use the chicken thigh or ground chicken, beef, pork.

How about ground beef?

-Ground beef, too.
-Because ground beef find it anywhere.

Yes.

And it's usually not that expensive.

Great.

And what's important is, as I said, this dashi soup and 3S.

Sugar, soy sauce, sake.

And mirin.

Okay.

And we want to have, like, 30 milliliter of each.

Okay.

And then you want to have sugar.

Okay.

-So 30.
-30 of sugar.

And two tablespoons.

30 milliliter of sake.

30 milliliter of mirin.

And if you don't have mirin, don't bother.

You just add a little more of sugar.

-Okay.
-Yes.

And soy sauce.

And we have 30 of each times seven is 210.

-I'm glad you did the math.
-Yes.

Then 210 amount of dashi stock.

Okay.

And turn the heat to high.

Excellent.

How did you come up with this golden ratio of 7:1:1:1?

Well, I.

I really watched my mom because every time I asked her, Mommy, tell me, how do you cook nikujaga?

Well, I don't have recipes.

And she wouldn't teach me how much of this and this and this.

So I really made a kind of like observation of her and looking at her from behind.

And I noticed she's always using this otama to just scoop the...

and okay, she's using the same amount, and then probably that's seven times of dashi.

So you took your mother's secret recipe and codified it?

You made it into a scientific principle, but it's really a family's secret restaurant recipe.

-Passed down generation to generation.
-Yes.

And what you do is instead of placing the lid, you want to have paper laid, making a hole like this.

Okay.

What does that do for us?

Well, this way the soup will circulate in the pot.

So even though you're not...you know - you're not placing the liquid all over the ingredients.

You still have the soup on top of everything because you have this paper towel.

Interesting.

Okay.

So you're letting some of the soup evaporate, which is different from a regular lid, but you're keeping the flavors in.

-Yes.
-Interesting.

So you're going to boil it down a little.

But you want the flavors to keep condensing and cooking everything without having to stir it.

-Right.
-Nice.

-So is that all we need to do for prep?
-Yes.

Okay. And how long do we wait?

Once the potatoes get really soft, it's done.

How long do you think that will be?

10 to 13 minutes.

Okay.

We'll relax and have a drink of wine, perhaps.

So you love to be efficient.

We have 12, 13 minutes.

What are we going to do?

We'll make the fish nimono.

Fish nimono! boil our fish in dashi.

Okay. What do we do?

Okay, first you can just pick any kinds of fish like salmon fillet or cod or tuna, whatever you have raw fish or frozen fish.

And then what's important is it sometimes it's really fresh, but sometimes it's not.

Or you are using frozen and you have drips coming out.

Right.

Then the best way to get rid of the fishy smell - is to blanch them in hot water.

Okay.

You don't have to cook them.

But by doing.

Going through this process, you have a big difference.

-Wow, you can tell that it's already firmed up a bit, right?
-Mm hmm.

-So you're not parboiling it?
-No.

This isn't boiling water, and you're not really cooking the fish.

You're just heating it up, up the outside to get the fishy smell off and firm up the meat a little.

Interesting.

This is one of those steps which I never knew about before coming to Japan.

It makes a huge difference.

If, like, your kids don't like the fishes smell or your friends are like, oh, I prefer a hamburger.

Try this step.

-It might make the difference.
-Yes.

Okay.

Now we're going to place this fish in the pot.

Okay.

Well, I would say pan. frying pan.

All right.

No oil or butter or anything?

-No.
-Okay.

Mm.

And on the side, I place this tofu.

Tofu?

Yes.

Well, it depends if you like tofu or some other stuff.

But my father really liked tofu with simmered with fish sauce.

So my father always asked me, Rika-chan, can you please put some tofu in it?

Nice.

So we have your mother's recipe with your father's preference.

We've got a lot of family love in this dish today.

That's great.

And it's good because you want to intake a lot of protein.

Sure.

And then if you have some, please slice the ginger.

I think a ginger really refreshes the taste.

And it gives you a little kick.

When you're eating it, your throat feels this little kick.

Oh, I love that.

Are we doing? 7 to 1 to 1 to 1 again?

No, this time.

Four to one, to one, to one, Four to one, to one, to one.

You want to have more strong flavor for fish?

So you don't want to dilute with dashi.

-Oh, okay.
-Too much.

Reduce the amount of dashi so that you get more savoryness from the soy sauce and sweetness from the sugar and mirin.

Great.

Using 4 parts of dashi will give you a more pronounced flavor which goes very well with rice.

It's perfect for making appetizers to go with drinks.

And three times four is 120 milliliters of dashi.

Okay.

30 times four.

And then when you turn the heat to high, you place this paper towel lid again.

I see.

So that the soup would circulate.

Right. And how many minutes do we cook this?

-Usually 12 minutes to 13 minutes.
-Okay, so about the same time as the nikujaga.

-Yes.
-Great.

Once the ingredients have absorbed the savory dashi, it's done.

Adding green beans or some other vegetables will give the dish a nice accent.

The fish is very tender and is prone to crumbling, so you need to be careful when plating it.

Drizzle with the umami-rich sauce, and it's ready to serve.

Strongest flavor will be Nikujaga.

Ooh, its glistening.

Mmm.

-Oh that's wonderful.
-Thank you.

Now we're getting the sugar and the soy sauce really kicking in.

It's a thicker sauce and the sugar gives it more like a rich consistency as well.

Right.

It's less of a soup broth and more like a sauce.

Isn't that great for your kids bento box.

Oh, for sure.

Okay.

This is the cod with tofu.

Mm.

The dashi is now playing sort of a background role.

The other flavors are strong.

It's got the dashi base, but it's really a nice, thick, delicious savory sauce.

It's got sweetness, it's got savory ness.

It's got a little, a little saltiness from the soy sauce.

Mm.

And I can, I can tell you, with a bowl of white rice, you just go back and forth.

You can create diverse flavors just by varying the ratio of dashi and seasonings.

I remember the nikujaga.

-It was 7:1:1:1.
-Right.

And then we used something a little bit stronger in flavor.

-The 4:1:1:1 for the cod dish.
-Right.

-And this one is 8:1:1:1:1.
-Okay.

And this one is 16:1:1:1.

A soup or sauce made with 8 parts of dashi allows the inherent flavor of the ingredients to stand out, and is well suited for simmering vegetables and ingredients with delicate flavors.

Mmm.

Oh it's so good.

The Dashi.

The other flavors are a little bit stronger, a little bit more savory.

But still it's all about the ingredients.

The vegetables.

-Vegetables have natural sweetness.
-Yes.

If you don't overpower them.

Using 16 parts of dashi further reduces the ratio of seasonings to dashi, allowing the taste of the kombu and katsuobushi dashi itself to come through.

Rika's technique makes it possible to produce a variety of flavors simply by varying the ratio of dashi to seasonings.

This is beautiful.

I love the deep green.

It goes so well with this lovely bowl as well.

Mmm.

Oh that's wonderful.

Thank you.

There's no bitterness at all left.

It's just got that lovely fish and strong, dashi flavor, but not overwhelming.

It's soaked into the vegetable, but it really brings out the vegetable flavor.

It's not overwhelming or overpowering.

Right.

It's a nice complement.

If you go to the high-end Japanese restaurant, you know, you have tasted things like this, right?

Sure.

Exactly.

If you the nicer the restaurant, the more delicate the flavoring.

Right.

This is excellent. Very high class.

Mmm. That's amazing.

Same dashi, same basic ingredients.

Just a little bit of ratio adjustment makes all the world of difference.

It's incredible.

Only thing you need to know is about dashi.

You just change the ratio and just put in any kinds of ingredients in the season.

Right.

Then you'd have thousands of varieties of Japanese dish.

Sure.

You can play around with the ratio yourself.

Follow the golden ratio for the first couple of times, but after that, you might find your own platinum or diamond ratio.

Who knows?

So I learned a lot about dashi today.

That was wonderful.

Thank you.

Do you have any memorable dashi dish?

Well, I remember the very first time I tried making miso soup, and I made it with water, not dashi.

It was terrible! Just awful.

And I asked one of my Japanese friends, you know, "How come the miso soup I had at your house was so good and mine so bad? What's the difference?"

And she told me the secret ingredient, right, is love.

But it was actually dashi.

So the moment I learned that there's something more important than just water or love in my food, all of my cooking got that much better.

Dashi really changed my understanding of Japanese cuisine, And today we made dashi using katsuobushi and kombu kelp.

But if you're a vegetarian, you can also use dried mushrooms.

Or if you really want to go and dig in, you can also use dried niboshi, which is a dried fish.

-Little sardines.
-Yeah.

-You can get all these ingredients on the net.
-Right.

So I wish you could give it a try, because it's really easy to make.

Sure.

Many people may think that Japanese cuisine is difficult to prepare, but it's all about the dashi.

And as you saw today, it's very easy to make dashi from scratch.

And if you stick to using the golden formulas that I showed you today, you can make all kinds of dishes with just dashi, sugar, sake, soy sauce and a mirin.

Your exploration of dashi can be a never ending journey.

Let's start it today.

Thank you for joining us and we'll see you again soon on Dining with the Chef.

-Bye bye.
-Bye bye.

Rika's technique for making dashi is very easy, and is definitely worth trying.

Today we learned how to make a basic dashi broth, using kombu and katsuobushi.

Remove the kombu before boiling to prevent the release of unwanted flavors.

Never squeeze the katsuobushi.

Follow these two points to make a clear, golden dashi broth.

Changing the ratio of dashi to seasonings will give you a medley of flavors.

Use 7 parts of dashi to 1 part each of the basic seasonings to make Meat and Potatoes with Dashi.

Using 4 parts of dashi will give you a more pronounced flavor that goes well with both rice and drinks.

Japanese cuisine is all about the dashi.

So, follow Rika's simple method and have fun cooking!