Recipe provided by Kate Jacoby and Rich Landau, chefs at Vedge in Philadelphia. Hear more in The Key 3 segment recorded at their restaurant.

Recipe note from Rich Landau: "This is called a dashi. In Japanese cooking dashi is made from fish and kombu seaweed. Obviously, we're not going to use the fish. And this is in everything in Japanese cooking; it’s in all their stocks and sauces, which makes it very hard to eat vegetarian there. We make ours with kombu and dried shiitake mushrooms instead of the fish. It has all these natural umami flavors going on in there. It just fills your mouth up when you're eating it and basically feels like you're eating so much more than just the stock."

Ingredients

  • 2 Cups dried shitake

  • 1/4 Cup tamari

  • 2 Oz kombu seaweed

Directions

1) Combine the shitakes, tamari, kombu and 4 quarts water in a large stockpot over high heat. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20min.

2) Remove from heat and let stand for an additional 20 minutes.

3) Strain out solids. Can be served immediately or chilled and stored for later use. The dashi can be refrigerated for up to three days and frozen up to a month.


Recipe provided by Vedge (Philadelphia, PA)