MEET IT IN 30 SECONDS
だし（出汁）
Dashi is a family of Japanese cooking stocks extracted from ingredients such as kombu and dried bonito. Stocks may combine ingredients or use plants alone, before further seasoning for the dish.
Dashi extracts flavour and aroma for soups, simmered dishes and steamed foods. Kombu, dried bonito, dried small fish and dried shiitake supply different stocks. Shōjin cooking can use kombu and shiitake without fish.
Kombu’s glutamate and bonito’s inosinate strengthen the sensation of umami together. Combining the ingredients produces awase dashi. The balance of ingredients and aroma can still vary with the dish.
The Umami Information Center illustrates soaking kombu in water overnight in the refrigerator. Its heated alternative holds the water at 60°C for an hour. These are two stated methods, rather than a universal timetable for every stock.
In the centre’s combined-stock method, remove kombu before boiling, add bonito flakes, return to the boil, then turn off the heat and strain after the flakes settle. Ichiban is the first extraction; reusing its ingredients makes niban. The guide pairs the former with clear soups or steamed dishes and the latter with miso soup or simmering.
Ancient tribute records include kombu and processed bonito. The National Diet Library distinguishes concentrated katsuonoirori from modern stock: it functioned more as a seasoning. By the late seventeenth century, smoking, drying and moulding methods were developing the form of katsuobushi used in later cooking.
A late-Muromachi text of the Ōkusa cooking tradition describes boiling bonito in a cloth bag. The Edo cookbook Ryōri monogatari includes second-extraction and shōjin stocks; Ryōri anbaishū of 1668 combines bonito and kombu. Reusing ingredients and mixing sources of flavour therefore have documented histories before modern convenience products.
The Union of Kansai Governments traces Hokkaido kombu through Sea of Japan ports such as Tsuruga and Obama, followed by overland transport to Kyoto. Edo-period shipping around Shimonoseki helped Osaka and Sakai become centres of distribution and processing. These routes connected northern production with kitchens far to the south.
Ikeda Kikunae identified glutamate as the source of kombu’s umami in 1908; commercial umami seasoning followed in 1909. Kodama Shintarō identified inosinate in bonito in 1913. This scientific account comes centuries after the written cooking methods.
Ajinomoto’s company history dates the launch of Hondashi granules to 1970. Adding granules shortened preparation for a bowl of soup. That product history is one development alongside stocks extracted from ingredients, rather than the origin of dashi itself.
No. Shōjin stocks can use plant ingredients such as kombu and dried shiitake.
Glutamate and inosinate create an umami synergy.
Put kombu in water and refrigerate overnight, following the centre’s stated example.
Ichiban is the first extraction; niban reuses those ingredients for another extraction.
No. Ingredients and concentrated seasonings must be distinguished from stock and its documented methods.
Ikeda’s identification of glutamate in kombu, not the invention of dashi.