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Dashi
The secret of Japanese cuisine
Appears in
By Heston Blumenthal, Pascal Barbot, Nobu Matsuhisa and Kiyomi Mikuni
Published 2009
Although Japanese cuisine is rich in diversity and visually attractive, there is one element underlying its appeal that is not apparent to the eye. This is a deceptively simple element called ‘dashi’, the stock that forms the basis of and invisibly permeates much of Japanese cuisine.
Dashi differs from other kinds of stock in that, rather than using simple ingredients boiled over a long period, as is the case with Western bouillon, it uses carefully prepared ingredients, patiently matured, which are only soaked in water or heated briefly so as to extract nothing but the very essence of the ingredients’ flavour.