PicoBlog

Let’s stop calling dashi Japanese stock. It’s an easy shortcut, but misleading. I’ve introduced it this way for years myself. However, recently, I’ve wondered if it’s putting people off making it. Prepping a stock conjures up ideas of chopping vegetables, meat carcasses, hours with a huge steaming pot on the go and all the resulting mess to deal with. Not the case with making a dashi. It’s more of a brew, or infusion. Most dashi take very little time to prepare. Some might steep or infuse for a few hours, but generally dashi is like making tea. Very rewarding and with little mess.

With 6 or so main ones, dashi is essential to Japanese cuisine. It is a stealth hero. Often unrecognised, if absent though, it will certainly be missed. Dashi acts to subtly elevate a dish. It brings umami in liquid form, as a result of soaking water with a dried ingredient, like mushrooms, seaweed or fish. As it is a liquid infusion, it evenly imparts umami to all parts of the dish. Wonderful!

Dashi is seriously fast to prepare, and well worth making fresh. Today I’ve chosen a recipe for Shiitake Mushroom Rice. Firstly, because it uses shiitake mushroom dashi, an entry level dashi and a great one to start with. Secondly, as it demos how using a simple dashi elevates plain steamed rice, into a flavour packed, umami rich dish. In cooking this, I’m hoping it’ll be a chance to recognise and identify exactly what characteristics dashi brings to the dish. It’s a little detective exercise to spot and recognise why dashi generally, is so central to Japanese cooking. Oh, and thirdly, I love that the final dish uses up the soaked mushrooms you’ve used to make the dashi. No waste.

Calling this a recipe, feels like overkill. The dashi is just the retained liquid that dried shiitake mushrooms are soaked in, to rehydrate them. It is as simple as making tea. 15 seconds to prep and 15 minutes to brew. Shiitake dashi is great to get into the habit of making at home. It stores well and I think of it as a gateway into the world of dashi and the umami it brings with it. Any leftover dashi will store for days in the fridge or months in the freezer.

To make your own shiitake dashi, the rule to follow is:

100% Water to 1% Dried Shiitake Mushrooms (100:1)

A useful quantity to make up at home, is 1 litre of water with 10g of dried shiitake. 10g, depending on the exact type and size of shiitake you’re using, is normally 4-5 mushrooms.

If in a rush, use boiling water and infuse the mushrooms. At least 15 minutes is best. They’re ready once each mushroom is fully soft and juicy. Squeeze them out to get every last drop of their flavour.

If you’ve more time, soak them in cold water, ideally for a minimum of 2 hours but you could leave them for up to 2 days. The cold water method is always best in terms of flavour, but hot is fine when time’s short.

For dashi, always use dried mushrooms. Shiitake mushrooms have plenty of glutamate and when they are dried it is concentrated. In addition, guanylates are produced when the cell membranes of the mushroom are broken down during drying and rehydrating. Guanylates are quite rare and in a shiitake dashi they intensify the umami flavours.

Use the best quality shiitake mushrooms you can get hold of. I like to experiment with different types to appreciate the different flavour profiles. A go-to for me are Clearspring’s Organic Dried Shiitake Mushrooms easy to find, great quality and organic.

I also love Donko Shiitake Mushrooms available via The Wasabi Company. They’re from Kyushu, really strongly flavoured and the mushrooms are so meaty!

Serves 4 people

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (300g) Japanese Rice (washed and soaked for at least 30 minutes)

• 5 Dried Shiitake Mushrooms (soaked for 15 mins, from making dashi)

• 2 cups (360ml) Shiitake mushroom dashi

• 2 tbsp Sake

• 11⁄2 tbsp Soy sauce

• 1 tsp Salt

• ¼ cup of Edamame (cooked from frozen is fine)

The soaked shiitake mushrooms should be soft. Slice the mushrooms very thinly.

Drain the soaked rice and add it to a pan with 2 cups of shiitake mushroom dashi. Then add the sake, salt and soy sauce, then mix well.

Place the sliced mushrooms in a layer on top. Do not mix.

Bring to the boil for 1 minute then reduce the heat and cover. Let it simmer for 10-11 minutes, until all the water is absorbed. You can also use a rice cooker.

Turn the heat of and then let it cool for a further 5 minutes. Mix the rice very lightly and gently, stirring in the edamame before serving.

More of an add, than a substitution, I’ll often throw in some carrot for more colour and flavour. Use 1⁄2 -1 Carrot, peeled and grated, then add it at the same stage as the mushrooms. I love the way it cooks in and brings a vibrant orange colour to the dish.

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