Japanese · sauce/condiment

Ichiban Dashi and Niban Dashi (First and Second Brew Sea Stock)

Ichiban Dashi and Niban Dashi (First and Second Brew Sea Stock) reads umami 8.2, salinity 5.5 and marine & briny 4.7 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Japanese sauce/condiment, about 1 hr 38 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 8.2 · Salinity 5.5 · Marine & Briny 4.7 · Smoke 4.0 · Funk & Ferment 3.9 · Richness 2.3 · Sweetness 1.6 · Earthy 0.7 · Bitterness 0.6 · Nutty 0.6 · Sourness 0.6 · Herbaceous 0.5

What's in it (8)

Time & effort: about 1 hr 38 min (18 min active) · effort: medium

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 0.1 kcal, 0 g protein, 0 g fat, 0 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (7 steps)

  1. Put the kombu in the litre of cold water and leave it 30 minutes, or overnight in the refrigerator if you have the time. The white bloom on the surface of good kombu is mannitol, not mould, and it carries flavour: wipe the leaf with a dry cloth and leave the bloom alone.
  2. Set the pan over the lowest heat you can hold and bring it to 60 C over about 20 minutes, then keep it at 60 to 65 C for another 20 to 25 minutes. This slow hold is where the glutamate comes out. If you have no thermometer, the water should steam faintly and never move.
  3. Raise the heat a little and lift the kombu out the moment small bubbles fringe the edge of the pot, around 80 C. Kombu boiled even briefly turns the stock cloudy, faintly slimy and marine-bitter, and there is no rescuing it. Keep the spent leaf for the second brew.
  4. Bring the liquid to a full boil, then pour in the 120 ml of cold water to knock the temperature back to about 80 C. Take the pan off the heat, scatter the 25 g of katsuobushi over the surface and leave it undisturbed for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, until most of the flakes have sunk.
  5. Line a sieve with damp muslin and pour the stock through in one movement. Do not press or wring the flakes: squeezing pushes fishy, slightly sour compounds into a stock whose whole point is clarity. You should have about 900 ml of pale gold liquid that smells of the sea and faintly of smoke. Season a spoonful with a few grains of the salt and a drop of the usukuchi soy to judge it; a good ichiban dashi tastes almost of nothing until the salt arrives, then blooms.
  6. For niban dashi, put the spent kombu and drained flakes in a pan with the 800 ml of fresh water, bring to a bare simmer and hold it 10 minutes, this time letting the ingredients cook properly. Off the heat, add the 8 g of fresh katsuobushi (the oikatsuo, or chasing bonito) and steep 2 minutes, then strain again. Niban dashi is stronger and coarser than the first brew: use it for miso soup, simmered vegetables and noodle broth, and keep the ichiban dashi for clear soups where you can see through to the bottom of the bowl.
  7. Substitutions: bottled at under 50 ppm hardness can stand in for the soft water.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.