Flavoring and Seasoning: Dashi, Umami and Fermented Foods [1 ed.] 4908325049, 9784908325045

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THE JAPANESE CULINARY ACADEMY'S COMPLETE JAPANESE CUISINE

Dashi, Umami, and Fermented Foods

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PREFACE

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MuRA1h YosHIHIRO

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Japanese Cuisine and the Culture of Umami Japanese Cuisine: Composition and Custom Kombu: History and Culture The jacket features the work of Yoshioka Sachio, the fifth generation in a lineage of Kyoto master dyers. Yoshioka is known for the finesse of his traditional vegetable dyeing techniques. The jacket of this volume displays momozome, a brilliant pink expressing the color of the peach blossoms of early spring. NOTE: Japanese

names in this book are given in traditional order, surname first.

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Katsuobushi: Passed Down from Antiquity

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Shoyu: A Seasoning's Distinctive Development Miso: Evolving in Its Environment Sake: Link with the Divine

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The Basics of Dashi The Science of Umami

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Kombu and Other Vegetable Dashi Ingredients Katsuobushi and Other Fish Dashi Ingredients

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Dashi Making Techniques Dashi Ingredient Science Ichiban Dashi

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Clear Soup Dishes Steamed Dishes Deep-fried Dishes Shojin Dashi

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Additional Types of Dashi

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Niban Dashi

Kombu Dashi Duck Dashi

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Vegetable Dashi

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Fermented Seasonings and Foods The Fermentation Process and Merits A ''National Treasure'' Mold

Sake, Mirin, and Vinegar Salt and Sugar

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116 128

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Aromatic Ingredients

Chapter

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Fermentation's Nutritional Value Types of Shoyu and Miso

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134

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Basic Flavorings and Seasonings Seasoned Dashi Dashi-flavored Vinegars Seasoning Combinations Aemono Dressings

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Cooking Utensils of the Japanese Kitchen Glossary 176 Index 180 Conversions 183

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MURATA

Yoshihiro

Director, Japanese Culinary Academy

allowing publication of Introduction to ;apanese Cuisine: Nature, History, and Culture in 2015, the Japanese Culinary Academy is pleased to present the sec­ ond book in the Complete Japanese Cuisine series. The first book introduced the landscape, history, and culture out of which Japanese cuisine developed and gave an overview of the main topics of the series, its main purpose being to transmit a sense of the inner traditions and spirit of Japanese cuisine. This book focuses on the fundamentals: dashi, umami, and fermented seasonings. The essentials of Japanese cuisine can be captured by the following elements: ''the five flavors,'' ''the five techniques,'' and ''the five colors,'' an emphasis on the use of seasonal ingredients, artistic expression of the seasons, and a feel for har­ mony with nature. The five flavors, defined according to Chinese tradition, are: spicy hot, sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. The five techniques are: cutting (includ­ ing raw ingredients), grilling, simmering, steaming, and deep-frying (each of these techniques will be introduced in subsequent books of this series). White, black, yellow, red, and blue/green are the main colors that come into play in the selection of tableware, use of garnishes and decorations of the dishes, and presen­ tation of the menu. As important as the ''five flavors'' is umami, a sixth flavor and the fifth ''taste'' that is abundant in dashi broth. Japanese cuisine notably aims for a balance of flavors. Dr. Ikeda Kikunae provided scientific evidence of umami in 1908, but already in the thirteenth century, the Priest Dogen's teachings recorded in Tenzo kyokun (Instructions for the Zen Cook) mention a ''sixth flavor''-which he called tanmi (''the light flavor''). Tanmi referred to a faint flavor that was thought to bring out the character of the ingredients; it is close to umami. During my training, I myself learned from senior chefs the wisdom that ''food should not be made so that it is supremely delicious only when you are eating it. What you seek are tastes that leave such an impression that they are remembered three days later." The secret of seasoning, then, is to refrain from adding that last dash of salt that might seem necessary, and what makes that possible is the power of umami. In Western cuisines, foods different in taste and flavor, such as meat and sauce, are arranged 6

separately on the plate and their flavors are combined to achieve a pleasant balance in the process of eating. In Japanese cuisine, the umami taste enfolds and bolsters other tastes, setting the stage for a concert of flavors in the dish as a whole. Japan has a long tradition in which harmony is considered the greatest of virtues, and the emphasis on harmony is distinctive in Japanese cuisine. Know­ ing how to use umami to draw out the flavor of ingredients can be a tremendous asset in the techniques of a chef The umami taste may have been identified in Japan, but umami-rich broths very close to Japanese dashi, like Russian borscht soup made from beets and beef, or high-quality Chinese tang broth made with Jinhua ham, have been used in cooking since long ago in places all over the world. What is distinctive about Japan's dashi broth is its virtual absence of calories, its blending of different umami substances including glutamic acid and inosinic acid, and also its clear, transparent color. This book presents ichiban dashi as the basic broth to be used in all sorts of recipes. We also introduce various other types of Japanese stock, including shojin dashi, centuries-old recipes calling for only vegetable ingredients, as well as more recently developed vegetable dashi and duck or chicken dashi. The terms dashi and umami are by now familiar to chefs all over the world. JCA has held numer­ ous workshops for chefs on dashi and umami overseas, and we are always gratified by the positive response as the chefs quickly learn the techniques and apply them to their own cooking. That response is proving an inspiration to young Japanese chefs as well. The volumes in the Complete Japanese Cuisine series are not simple how-to books, nor are they intended to assert any one ''correct'' technique or explana­ tion. What is important is the way of thinking that is behind the work of a chef What we hope is that chefs will learn the basics presented here and be able to put them to use in their own cuisines, helping them to open up new horizons in their profession.

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Chapter

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Japanese Cuisine and the Culture of Umami The broth called dashi and the flavor known as umami are at the very core of Japanese cuisine. In this book we explain the history, culture, methods of production, and variety of the ingredients that yield umami flavor-the kombu and katsuobushi indispensable to making dashi, and the miso and shoyu that are the leading fermented seasonings.

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Composition and Custom

The four basic components of the typical Japanese meal are rice (gohan), soup (shiru), side dishes (okazu), and pickles (tsukemono; also konomono). Rice is the staple and soups are often umami-flavored miso soups. Sometimes the soup will be seasoned with salt or shoyu, but in either case the liquid is drunk directly from the bowl. Chopsticks are used to eat the solid ingredients together with rice. One main side dish and one or two other side dishes normally accompany the rice and soup. The pickles, which are somewhat salty or sour, add flavor to the bites of rice and refresh the palate if eating something oily or strongly seasoned. This typical meal is made to be eaten without drink, although sake, beer, or other alcoholic beverages are often served. In contrast to household fare, Japanese cuisine served in restaurants or prepared by a professional chef is intended to accompany sake or some other alcoholic beverage. Side dishes to be eaten with rice are called okazu or osozai; appe­ tizers and tidbits made to be enjoyed while drinking sake are called sakana. In order to encourage drinking, restau­ rant dishes are kept small, their content varied, and flavor modulated, keeping the appetite ,vhetted for more. The types of dishes, names, and order in which they are served differ from one restaurant to another, but the basic ones are sakizuke (appetizer), otsukuri (sashimi), owan (clear soup dish), yakimono (grilled dish), hassun (seasonal appetizer), sunomono (vinegared dish), often along with a carefully timed steamed or deep-fried dish. In this way, it is only after ample sake and side dishes have been served that the meal will finally be brought to an end with rice, soup, and pickles. After that, a sweet or jellied dessert may be served. In this way, the composition of a household meal and of a IO

JAPi\NESE CUISINE AND THE CULTURE OF UMAMI

The courses of kaiseki-style cuisine TOP ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): choku

(tidbits), hassun (seasonal appetizer), mukozuke (seasonal sashimi) MIDDLE ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): futamono (clear soup dish), yakimono (grilled dish), hiyashi-bachi (chilled dish) BOTTOM ROW (LEFT TO RIGHT): suzakana (vinegared dish), shiizakana (extra deli­ cacy), gohan (rice), konomono (pickles), tome-wan (last soup served).

full-course restaurant meal are basically quite different. Until the end of the nineteenth century, Japanese gen­ erally ate their meals served on individual tra)TS or tra)­ tables (zen; also o-zen) about 40 centimeters (about 15 inches) square. At the front of the tray is the rice and soup bowl, and between them a dish of pickles; at the back there is room for up to three side dishes. The largest meal that can be served on such a tray consists of one soup and three side dishes besides a bowl of rice. This is called the ichiju sansai meal. Even simpler meals would have fewer side dishes. When guests are being entertained, however, hos­ pitality may call for more dishes to be served, so in those cases the number of trays or tray tables is increased. From around the fifteenth century, a style of banquet developed known as honzen cuisine. The number of zen (between two and seven) and the number of dishes determined the grade of the repast. Orthodox honzen cuisine is visuall)r quite extraordinary, but not very tasty to actually eat, and today it has almost completely disappeared. Nevertheless, quite a large number of food preparation methods ha,re been developed out of and refined from that tradition. The so-called kaiseki style of dining emerged in the sixteenth century with the development of the tea cer­ emony. This follows the basic rice and soup formula found in household fare, but an additional three side dishes-in the form of the mukozuke (light side dish, often sashimi), simmered dish, and grilled dish-are brought out from the mizuya (preparation room) one by one. Today's fine Japanese cuisine combines the menu of dishes from honzen banqueting with the sequential pre­ sentation of a kaiseki meal.

■ Basics of Japanese Cuisine Sweet, sour, bitter, and salty are well established today as the basic tastes, but Japanese have long identified a fifth taste, umami, which is also now widely recognized. Methods of bringing out this umami taste are described in Japanese using a verb that means ''drawing out fla­ vor." It is not certain when the word ''dashi'' began to be used, though it is known that by around the fifteenth century umami was extracted using katsuobushi (dried and smoked bonito) and kombu (kelp). The Okusadono yori soden no kikigaki (Oral Instructions of Lord Okusa), a culinary text of the time, calls for ''boiling [katsuobushi] and bringing its flavor out fully." It should be noted that ''dashi'' comes from the term ''ni-dashi,'' which means ''boiling to bring out [flavor]." Umami being as important a taste as it is for Japanese cuisine, it was not long after modern science \Vas intro­ duced to Japan in the nineteenth century that Japanese began the scientific analysis of umami taste. In 1908, the scholar Ikeda Kikunae (1864-1936) identified the substance responsible for umami in kombu as sodium glutamate. One of Ikeda's students went on to locate the umami in katsuobushi in the histidine salt of inosinic acid and later that of shiitake mushrooms in guanylic acid. Five hundred years earlier, however, cooks had devised meth­ ods of using these three ingredients to make a tasty broth. Ryori monogatari (Cooking Stories), the first woodblock­ print cookbook in Japan (1643), mentions katsuobushi broth and advises using 1 sho (masu box, 90 grams or about 3 ounces) of katsuobushi for 1.5 sho (2.7 liters) of water. It also calls for using a kombu dashi-based clear soup (sumashijiru) for soups with perch (suzuki) or cod (tara), and includes some mention of the dashi in shojin temple cuisine, suggesting that at that time dashi was in the pro­ cess of becoming established as a seasoning for soups and simmered foods. Cookbooks were published in great quantity in the eighteenth century and Japan's culinary arts made great strides. Ryori komoku chomisho (Book of Seasonings by Cooking Category), published around 1730, states that ''dashi is the very basis of cooking,'' illustrating how fun­ damental the broth is to Japanese cuisine. In the Edo period, the main way of making dashi involved simmering the stock for a fairly long period. Ryori komoku chomisho indicates the quantity of katsuo­ bushi at 15 percent of the amount of water and calls for 12

JAPANESE CUISINE AND THE CULTURE OF UMAMI

cooking the liquid until it has been reduced by 30 to 40 percent. This is quite different from the procedure most common today, which is to add katsuobushi flakes to boiling water, turn off the heat after about thirty sec­ onds, and then pour off the broth. As for kombu broth, some of the old cookbooks call for the reduction method, but quite a few of them describe making broth from cold water. Some recommend soaking the dashi ingredients in water overnight, a method still used toda}r·

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"Dashi is the very basis of cooking," says the 1730 cookbook

Ryori komoku chomisho.

The method of combining different dashi ingredients that is now well established is a relatively recent innova­ tion. In the Edo period, katsuobushi-based dashi was the main type in eastern Japan and kombu-based dashi the main type in western Japan, and it seems that using both katsuobushi and kombu to double the umami of the broth is a product of the twentieth century. Japanese broth, whether made with katsuobushi, niboshi (dried sardines), or ago (dried flying fish), contains almost no animal fat or gelatin. In the case of katsuobushi and kombu, while considerable time is consumed in process­ ing the ingredients, making the broth itself takes almost no time at all. The dashi ingredients are painstakingly prepared, cured, and preserved over a long period of time, but it only takes a moment to extract the essential umami from them, after which the dregs are in most cases sim­ ply disposed of. In some cases, the ingredients may be recycled to make niban dashi (see p. 95).

■ Seasonings Japan's oldest traditional seasonings are probably salt and vinegar. Naturally salt is much older, but vinegar must have been available from around the time that people began to make wine from rice. The next seasoning to emerge was hishio paste, Jiang in Chinese. The earliest forms of Jiang paste brought from the continent were fish­ based and meat-based, and later kokubishio, grain- or, soy­ bean-based paste, was made, and this became the main form of seasoning in Japanese cuisine. Ancient documents reveal some twenty varieties of hishio paste, though their specific content is not well understood. However, the "'ord misho (see p. 34), which is thought to be the proto­ t)-pe of today's miso, appears, and is thought to have been a paste. On the table at Japanese banquets of the Heian period (794-1192) it is recorded that four seasonings­ salt, vinegar, sake, and hishio-,vere provided. In the thirteenth century, use of koji yeast to ferment soybeans in the making of moromi (mash)-type miso began to spread. Miso was used as a seasoning but also as a kind of side dish called namemiso for meals and drinking. In the sixteenth century, liquid that drained out of a bag con­ taining miso mixed with water (taremiso) and liquid that collected in a basket-like utensil placed in miso (tamari) were both used as seasonings. The term shoyu (soy sauce) begins to appear in Japa­ nese documents for the first time in the sixteenth cen-

tury, referring to a seasoning produced differently from either taremiso or tamari. Shoyu is the refined end-product of brine fermenting soybeans with a koji mold cure. Since the seventeenth century, shoyu and miso have been the leading seasonings in Japan. In the seventeenth century, shoyu was introduced to Europe and an article about it was included in Denis Diderot's Encyclopedie in the eigh­ teenth century. The fermentation processes for miso and shoyu take from three months to three years, meaning the products are well-matured. Their manufacturing processes are complex and take time, but once ready, miso and shoyu can be used directly on food, and like katsuobushi and kombu, extracting umami from them takes little time-a distinctive feature of Japanese cuisine. The seasonings used for sweetness in Japanese cook­ ing in ancient times were ame syrup, made from rice and other ingredients, and amazura, extracted from the stem of a kind of vine, the core of which has a nearly 20 percent sugar content. The stems are boiled to release the sweet­ ness and the liquid used to season foods. Sugar cane was not originally grown in Japan, so sugar was hardly used through the end of the fifteenth century. Sugar began to be imported around the sixteenth century, when trade with areas south of Japan was lively. In the seventeenth century, Japan secluded itself from contact with most European powers except the Netherlands, and sugar was a luxury imported through trade with the Dutch. In the eighteenth century, cultivation of sugar cane was encour­ aged in Japan and a distinctive type of sugar, known as wasanbon, began to be produced on the island of Shi­ koku. This type of sugar is still preferred today to make Japanese-style confections. Another seasoning used for sweetness is mirin. Origi­ nally a sweet type of sake, mirin was developed as a seasoning in the eighteenth century. It is a distinctive fer­ mented seasoning with 14 percent alcohol content and 45 percent sugar content (p. 130). Mirin is used for a sweet­ ness different from that of sugar, but it also adds gloss to the appearance of dishes. Grilled eel, or unagi no kabayaki, is one of the dishes that benefits most from the distinctive flavor and glossiness of mirin.

JAPANESE CUISINE AND THE CULTURE OF UMAMI

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Kombu

History and Culture

The use of kombu (kelp; edible seaweed of the genus Laminaria) in cooking has a long history in Japan. Kombu is mentioned in historical documents some 1,200 years ago, but is thought to have been used as far back as the Jomon period (from about 15,000 to 2,300 years ago). From ancient times, dried kombu was chopped finely and prized for its medicinal qualities, and it was a precious, sacred product that was used as an offering to the gods. Around the twelfth century, with the development of shojin vegetarian cooking introduced from China, kombu began to be used as a main ingredient for broth, or dashi, as it is today. Seaweed like kombu is most useful for shojin cooking; not only for stock and simmered dishes but in many other ways as well kombu strips deep-fried in sesame oil made a highly nutritious treat, for instance. From around the latter part of the seventeenth century, coastal shipping routes developed, making possible the longdistance transport of kombu from where it was harvested in what is now Hokkaido to the commercial center of Osaka in the western part of the country. The northern city of Tsuruga became a major port of call in the coastal distribution routes plied by the so-called kitamaebune the ships that engaged in the coastal commodity trade. Among the goods they dealt in, kombu was of considerable importance; it was processed at Tsuruga and shipped to Kyoto and Osaka. As this "kombu road" was established, kombu came to be sold cheaply enough that its use spread to ordinary people as well. Japanese cuisine calls for many dried, preserved ingredients (kanbutsu) that can be used in various ways, a

OPPOSITE: Detail from "Matsumae kombu" (Kombu production in Matsumae domain, in present-day Hokkaido)" in the 1754 book titled Nippon sankai meibutsu zue (Illustrations of Famous Products of the Hills and Seas of Japan), compiled by Hirase Tessai, prints by Hasegawa Mitsunobu. Shows the strips of kombu being harvested into the boats and then spread out to dry on the beach and over rooftops.

leading example being kombu, most often as the base for making broth. Drying, curing, and then resoaking kombu before using it in order to draw out its umami component is a method at the very core of Japanese cuisine. There are various types ofkombu Rishiri, Rausu, Hidaka, and makombu (see photo, p. 47) differing by region and recipe. Makombu is sold most widely in Osaka and other parts of the Kansai region and Hidaka kombu the most familiar in the Tokyo area. With the "favor of the broth" said to determine the character of the cuisine, chefs devote great attention to the source of their dashi. This book, except in cases where another type is specified, introduces dashi made with Rishiri kombu. Kombu is also used to make oboro kombu (shredded kombu; used for onigiri rice balls, etc.), tororo kombu (filaments made by shaving kombu after softening in a vinegar marinade), which is added to soups, and tsukudani, a condiment for rice made by simmering strips or squares of kombu in shoyu and other seasonings.

Printed advertising handbill with auspicious motifs distributed to customers at year's end by a kombu merchant. It is based on a polychrome woodblock print showing a kitamae-bune coastal shipping vessel in full sail (late Meiji).

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J.APAN.ESE CUlSlNE AN.D rrI-iE CULTURJ3 OF lll\ll/\1"11

Boats harvesting kombu. For the harvesting of kombu, which takes place on limited days and within limited hours each day, the boats go out all at once. TOP:

Kombu being pulled out of the water. The plants are cut at their roots on the rocks using a long pole. BOTTOM:

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JAPA 1 ESE CUISINE AND THE CULTURE OF UMAMI

Korn bu drying on the shore. The blades are spread out over gravel on the beach, where they dry in one day under the hot sun.

■ Harvesting and Drying Kombu The season and even the time of day are fixed for harvesting kombu. From the start of the season around July 10 for two months until the middle of September, the harvesters' boats go out during two to four hours in the morning on those days. These rules have been established partly to protect the natural environ­ ment and assure the safety of the harvesters, but also in order to allow time to lay out the seaweed to dry. Using a hydroscope to locate the kelp plants underwater and a long-handled hook, the harvesters pluck the long blades at the root or cut them off with a scythe-like tool. The harvested kombu is carefully washed in seawater one blade at a time and then stretched out for a day of sun-drying over rocks or gravel on the shore. Sun drying kombu is exacting, as the position of the blades may need to be shifted and drying time adjusted according to the weather and direction the wind is blowing. Exposure to rain would destroy the product. In recent years, kombu is often machine dried, but since machine-dried kombu tends to make a cloudy stock, respected kombu makers remain attached to the time-tested sun-drying method. Kombu dried under the sun retains a certain level of moisture and a fine, white powder forms on its surface. That white powder, called manittol, is a faintly sweet sugar that is one of the elements that determines the flavor of kombu.

JAPA ESE CUISI E AND THE CULTURE OF UMAMI

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From Harvest to Shipping Kombu grows in regions of cold-current flows, and areas where warm and cold currents mingle are rich in nutrients and thought to be the best for high-quality kombu. Some 40 species of 10 genera of kelp grow along the coasts of Hokkaido, and these account for about half of the varieties found around the world. More than 90 percent of the kombu produced in Japan is harvested in that region. Indigenous kombu species vary from region to region along the island of Hok­ kaido (see map at right): Rishiri kombu is found along the Soya cape-the big cape at the northern tip, Rausu kombu comes from the Shiretoko peninsula on the east side, Hidaka kombu from Cape Erimo in the south, makombu from the southern Esan cape, and so forth. Historically, kombu varieties have been associ­ ated with and named after the region and the exact seacoast area (hama) where they are harvested, and kombu products are identified and marketed accordingly. The Kabuka coast of Rebun Island at the northernmost point of Hokkaido and the Kutsugata coast of Rishiri Island are known for the highest grades of Rishiri kombu. These coasts are blessed with the natural conditions that make for good­ quality kombu-the ideal mix of currents and water temperature, sunlight, the presence of freshwater rivers or streams flowing into the sea, and good areas to dry harvested kombu. Even when the variety of kombu is the same, the product will differ depending on the conditions under which it grows, so sometimes the price and grade of the kombu of harvesters can differ even among the coasts in the neighborhood. Also, the quality of kombu differs from one year to the next, depending on climatic conditions.

Rebun Island • Kabuka coast Kutsugata • coast Rishiri Island Cape Soya

Kombu Growth and Harvest Kombu propagates from spores that attach to rocks around 5 to 10 meters (16 to 30 feet) underwater and takes about two years to grow. The first year, the blades start to wither in autumn and die off by winter, but this is the means by which the plant gets through the harsh winters of the northern ocean. In the spring of the second year, the plant regenerates from the root and sends out blades of even greater thickness than the first year. During the summer, the blades increase in width and length, and they grow thicker by the time the harvest season arrives. Kombu harvested from July to mid-August of the second year is known as hashiri (''early'') kombu, and all after that is called godore (''later picked'') kombu. Godore kombu, gathered after growth has ended, has thick blades that yield poor and slightly viscous stock; the kombu best suited to making broth is hashiri. Once the season begins, kombu harvesters go out to gather kelp, and on the same day spread out the blades to dry in the sun (pp. 16-17).

Shiretoko

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Rausu