Happy Friday!
This newsletter is part of the new series I just (re)launched! I made four dinners this week. As part of these dinners, I made a dashi stock that will be used for three out of the four recipes, and I also made a kaeshi concentrate that will be used for two of them.
I recommend making the dashi and kaeshi stocks on Sunday so they’re ready to go when you make any of the dinners throughout the week. The kaeshi needs at least three days in the fridge before being used to deepen its flavor; the longer it sits in the fridge, the better it tastes. Once made, you can store the kaeshi in the fridge for up to a month and use it for other Japanese recipes or for the two recipes below (Kake Soba & Agedashi Tofu). I’ll be posting more recipes this month that also include the kaeshi concentrate.
With that said, you might not know what dashi stock or kaeshi concentrate is. So let me explain!
Kaeshi is a flavoring concentrate used in Japanese dishes. It’s one of the main flavor bases for classic Japanese soups and dipping sauces. It tastes so good that you can boil any vegetables with water and a little bit of kaeshi, and they’ll pick up a salty umami flavor.
There are many types of dashi stock, but the one we’re making is awase dashi. Awase dashi is made with bonito flakes and kombu and is often used for miso soup and soba noodle soup (see the recipe below). Dashi is a staple in Japanese households and can be used in a wide array of Japanese dishes. It’s like chicken stock but with a bit of a fishy umami flavor. If you’ve ever made Japanese recipes and used chicken stock instead of dashi, you might have noticed it tastes a little different from what you get at Japanese restaurants. Dashi is simple but crucial to many Japanese dishes. If you’re not able to make your own, no worries—there are dashi powders you can dissolve in hot water that work just as well!
Anyway, back to the dinners. These can all be made in 30 minutes to an hour if you’ve already got the dashi and kaeshi prepped and ready to go.
Grocery List
Below are the ingredients you’ll need for each recipe. I’ve also attached a PDF document that lists everything. The PDF also has a section labeled essentials—those are ingredients I buy once a month and use in most of my recipes. The total cost for the list was about $110 at Whole Foods, which fed four people (not including the essentials).
Now, let’s take a look at the menu!
Dinner #1: Kake Soba w/ Crispy salmon
Find the recipe here.
Components
Tsuyu broth (a mix of dashi & kaeshi)
Buckwheat soba noodles
Lots of green onions
Crispy skin salmon
Simple cucumber salad
Dinner #2: Agedashi Tofu Bento
Find the recipe here.
Components
Crispy tofu coated with potato starch
Tsuyu broth
Japanese simmered kabocha
Japanese avocado salad
Find the recipe here.
Components:
Kimchi
Sake
Dashi
Pork belly
Silken tofu
Gochujang
Gochugaru
Dinner #4: Miso Udon Carbonara
Find the recipe here.
Components:
Udon noodles
White miso
Pecorino & parmesan
Creamy eggs
Crispy pork belly
This will stay up until March 21st. Dinner recipes will be free once a month on the second week of every month. Just as a reminder, I’m offering the month’s subscription for $1/month using the link:
https://bakingbyyuka.substack.com/ad2dda0c
That is everything I made for dinner this week! I hope you guys like it and see some of you next week for the pastry box!
Mwah