Kombu Dashi Recipe

The ways you can utilize seaweeds culinarily are endless: as many recipes as you can use salt you can use seaweed.  This is true not only the sense that seaweed can be substituted as a better alternative to “regular salt”, but also in the sense that seaweed in food recipes can be as ubiquitous as salt.  

In other words, you can add seaweed to just about any dish!

Lets start with 2 very simple seaweed-forward preparations that can be consumed as-is, or serve as the basis for or additions to more complex dishes.

Kombu Dashi Recipe

Kombu Dashi is a seaweed broth made from kombu, and is a staple of Japanese cuisine.  

INSTRUCTIONS

Soak about 1/4oz (7g) kombu overnight in a quart of water.  You now have kombu dashi.

Alternatively, add the same 1/4oz of kombu to a quart of water in a small pot and bring to a simmer. Low simmer for about 15 minutes. Remove from heat. You now have kombu dashi.

USES

A great way to use this dashi is as a warm cup of tea first thing in the morning. A healthy morning tonic, it replenishes the cells following the cellular repair that takes place during sleep, and helps remove waste and rehydrates our plasma with essential minerals.

Just as importantly, as a “break fast” this umami tea delivers the essence of pleasure and satisfaction to our taste and to our cells.  As the morning brings the opportunity of the new day, the natural umami taste of the broth orients and influences us to make good decisions about what we choose to consume throughout the day. 

To better understand, consider a high-sugar breakfast as the first taste of the day.  It delivers little in the way of nutrients, spikes the blood sugar, and rather than bringing satisfaction, it creates a lingual craving for the next sweet thing.  The result is depletion rather than nourishment.

When we “break fast” with kombu dashi or any seaweed broth, instead of corrupting the taste, we reaffirm in our body what is good and the next choice will naturally most likely be another good choice, throughout the day, one day to the next.