Modernist dashi
February 7, 2011 
3 Comments
Through my involvement with the Society for Culinary Arts and Letters, I’ve been lucky enough to get access to a review copy of Modernist Cuisine, the 2,400-page, 6-volume tour de force cookbook by Nathan Myhrvold and his team that’s being released next month.
For my first foray into cooking from the book, I decided to make hon-dashi. I’ve written about dashi before, but this recipe is different from my usual technique in a couple of ways. First, it involves vacuum-sealing the kombu and water and cooking it with an immersion circulator for 1 hour, then chilling in the fridge. Then, after it’s chilled, it gets drained off the kombu and heated in a pot, and the bonito flakes are added.
The final broth was intensely smoky and umami. (My sister commented that it reminded her of lapsang souchong tea.) In part, I suspect the intensity comes from the quantity of raw materials used: this recipe calls for nearly twice the kombu and bonito flakes as I usually use. To my mind, this makes it a special-occasion dashi, best used for soups or broth-based noodle dishes, where the flavour of the dashi is of paramount importance. I’ll probably continue with my traditional ratios for everyday dashi. At the same time, heating the kombu sous vide is much easier than trying to maintain the temperature on the stovetop for an hour, and the chilling step is completely absent from my usual approach. I’d be curious to taste the broth after the kombu is infused but before the bonito flakes are added. I’m also more eager than ever to track down some higher-quality kombu and bonito flakes!
One thing I was surprised by, however, was the absence of any commentary on the quality of the water used for dashi. I’ve read that soft water is imperative for extracting glutamates from the kombu, but no specific mention is made of this in the recipe, although information on water quality – including a recommendation to avoid using hard water for cooking – is given elsewhere in the book. I will continue to use bottled water for dashi, because I find it makes a better-tasting product.
Even this first, simple preparation from Modernist Cuisine gave me a lot to think about. I’m eagerly looking forward to trying some of the more involved recipes!
For more on the book, see the Modernist Cuisine site and the Society’s thread, where you can read my full first impression of the book.
I agree that the most difficult in the process of making a perfect dashi is to maintain the temperature on the stovetop, sometimes adding some fresh water to the pot. Nice new technique!
I would like to know about some good bottled water.
I am in Sao Paulo, Brazil, but we have a great access to nice products from many other countries.
Unfortunatelly I didn’t find yet a Brazilian water spring that could provide a soft water as I have tasted in Japan.
In Japan they are extremely serious about the quality of the water they use for sake and for high quality cuisine.
Spring water in Brazil is good, particularly for healthy, but quite heavy in minerals.
I have already tried bottled water like Perrier, Evian, Volvic, Acqua Panna (too heavy) and a Japanese brand I don’t remind now that a friend gave to me.
I would like to know about your impressions and experience with these or other bottled water.
I have even tried to add some distilled water to my spring water, but I didn’t enjoyed the results. Perhaps I have to try other ratios…
Thanks,
Telma
Hi Telma,
I’m not very picky about my bottled water. I use a Canadian product that is labelled as “demineralized.” I think the most important thing is to look for water that’s low in dissolved minerals; mine says it has less than 10 parts per million. Distilled water is useful for some applications, especially if you’re going to be adding your own ions (such as when working with gellan), but it generally doesn’t taste very good, because the taste of water is highly dependent on the dissolved minerals. Good luck!