Konbu no tsukudani (for Kelp rice balls)

I shared 3 ways to make miso soup on my blog.

In the recipe that I titled “The Tastiest Miso Soup”, I taught you how to make dashi soup base from scratch where you use dried bonito flakes and kelp (dashi konbu) to extract umami out.

When you’ve got yourself a potful of fabulous golden soup base, you also have yourself the wet bonito and kelp that you’ve extracted the umami from.

Throw them away?

Don’t!

They will make great accompaniments for rice.

In this article, I’ll teach you how to make Konbu no tsukudani by using the used kelp.

If you’d like to check the recipe in a movie form, here’s the link; https://youtu.be/v_gRMRqX2C8.

Konbu (or Kombu) is the Japanese translation for kelp.

Tsukudani is a type of food preserving. We simmer seafood, seaweed, mushroom, beef, or sometimes bugs with soy sauce, sugar, and mirin to preserve them. They are often consumed with cooked rice.

Just like other Japanese food preserving such as bonito furikake and umeboshi, you can simply put it on the top of freshly cooked warm rice, mix it into cooked rice and turn it into a rice ball, or hide it inside of a rice ball.

Konbu no tsukudani

Ingredients

Kelp that you used earlier (20 grams when it was dried)

Water pour until it covers kelp

Seasonings:

½ teaspoons of salt

1 tablespoon of sugar

2 tablespoons of mirin

3 tablespoons of soy sauce

2 tablespoons of mizuame (*honey or corn syrup may work but may not achieve the same result.)

Toasted white sesame seeds

Procedure

Shred kelp thinly (*Be careful not to cut your fingers! Wet kelp is very slippery!), and add into a small pot. Pour water until it covers the kelp completely. Do not place a lid, but cover it with a piece of foil or baking parchment paper. Bring it to a boil over medium heat and then turn it down to low. Cook it for 1 hour.

Take the foil or paper off. Add seasonings. Simmer it over low heat for another one hour. The liquid should be completely evaporated in the end, but it needs to take another an hour to soften the kelp, so if it’s evaporating too fast, adjust the heat to the lowest possible. After an hour, if there is still liquid, turn up the heat and boil ot off completely until it’s sticky.

Mix toasted white sesame seeds into it.