Confusion on Liquid Dashi

[Jodan]

Yesterday I visited my local Japanese market to pick up some Dashi for, well, everything! But mostly to attempt to make Oyakodon. Which I feel was a failure.

I blame it mostly on the overwhelming amount of Dashi in the pan. The brand I am using is Kikkoman Hon Tsuya (Soup & Sauce Base), which was suggested to me by the people at the market. I was looking for granulated, but could not find it.

The directions pretty much read as a table split into sections asking for what you are making and then telling you how many parts water you should use. The Oyakodon recipe I have calls for 2 1/2 cups of dashi, which I feel like is a lot, but I trust Tsuji-sans recipe.

Towards the bottom, after the chart, it reads "Add water accoridng to the chart, to one part of Hon Tsuyu.

-Jo

 

[undrentide]

The biggest reason is you used tsuyu instead of dashi - they are two different things!
Tsuyu like Kikkoman's "Hon Tsuyu" is a mixture of dashi (Japanese soup stock which you can make dried konbu/kelp and/or katsuobushi/dried bonito, shaved and boiling water), soy sauce and mirin.
If you use tsuyu in place of dashi, the result will be way too salty and too dark in colour!


If you want to make oyakodon, you should use Hon Tsuyu deluted with water (maybe 1:2 or 1:3, ratio varies depending on the product and brand), and without adding any salt, soy sauce, or mirin. But adding a little bit of sake would give it a nice flavour.

If you cannot find instant "dashi", you can make it yourself - boil water in a pot, before it boils, add "katsuobushi" (shaved one) and stop the heat before it starts boiling. Leave it a while and remove katsuobushi from the stock (dashi) with strainer.
If you cannot find katsuobushi, you can use water instead of dashi.

 

[Jodan]

Haha, thanks undrentide! I will try it again this weekend.

When you say add some sake, do you mean cooking sake or regular sake?

 

[undrentide]

Unless "cooking sake" means "mirin", either will do.

 

[Numark]

As far as I know the difference between "cooking sake" and sake are the same as "cooking wine" and wine. The "cooking" versions have salt or preservatives added to keep them from spoiling. When I go to the asian market I just buy the bottles of "Rice cooking wine" which is essentially sake, and is plenty good enough for cooking for me.

Mirin is a fermented sweet cooking seasoning, not a wine. Although you can buy "Aji-Mirin" which is a mixture of the two.

 

[Aurura]

Katsuobushi (鰹節 or かつおぶし, Katsuobushi?) is the Japanese name for a preparation of dried, fermented, and smoked skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis, sometimes referred to as bonito). Katsuobushi and kombu (a type of kelp) are the main ingredients of dashi, a broth that forms the basis of many soups (such as miso soup) and sauces (e.g., soba no tsukejiru) in Japanese cuisine. It is today typically found in bags of small pink-brown shavings. Larger, thicker shavings, called kezurikatsuo (削り鰹; けずりかつお), are used to make the ubiquitous dashi stock. Smaller, thinner shavings, called hanakatsuo (花鰹; はなかつお), are used as a flavoring and topping for many Japanese dishes, such as okonomiyaki. - Wikipedia

I got curious of just what it was and how I'd find it. Yay! Now I have a new mission to try making my own!