Champon

Sixty Grit's previous post on eels instigated this post.

I intend to deliver a master's class on Japanese cooking that will advance your level in a few minutes to what takes regular students years to absorb.

For you are quick learners.

For years I wondered why the miso soup that I make for myself isn't ever as good as the miso soup served in any Japanese restaurant. The answer turns out to be dashi. I made my miso soup with water or with chicken or beef broth, and they make theirs with dashi.

Dashi is the simplest of things. But it is based on centuries of accumulated knowledge and practice. It is a seafood broth made of steeped dried seaweed and steeped dried and smoked skipjack tuna such as fish jerky. Except sliced to extremely thin flakes. Those two things are steeped as tea.

And that forms a light fish broth that is actually superior to any other  seafood broth used for bouillabaisse. It is the scent and the taste of the sea itself. I tested seafood broths separately, various fish bits, and clam juice, all made with saffron, and dashi wins the comparison hands down. French are very good at this, but Japanese have their seafood act down.

So then, before anything else, do not fear the dashi. You buy kombu and you buy bonito and get started. There are a million videos on YouTube about how to steep these two things. Possibly fifty videos. It's simple as making tea. There is also instant dashi available so you can skip the traditional method.

When the video says "dashi" this is what they are talking about. And they say it so off-the-cuff because it is so common. It's the same thing as saying, "steep one teabag of Lipton's tea."

I wish my father was alive so I could show this to him. He never understood the concept of stock. I know he was interested because he tried to make soup several times. Gallons upon gallons, but he never started with stock. His vegetable soup was always watery. You couldn't add enough salt to make it interesting. It was impossible to repair. When I told him to start with stock he asked me, "What's stock?" And I saw the books he was reading about Japanese cooking. When he put them down, I read them. They all describe how to make dashi, yet he never internalized any of it. He never bought the two required ingredients. And because of that he was never able to do anything. Unable to get started. It was a mental block.

Even with vegetable soup you would start with a vegetable stock. And if your stock included something like kombu, then you'd be off to a fantastic start. Japanese use a lot of interesting vegetables that would take your vegetable soup over the top.

So then, dashi.

Second are the usual Asian flavor ingredients. I have seven magical Asian flavor ingredients that are used repeatedly. In everything. It's interesting to see which ones of the seven are used in this video. In the video they're added here and there and this stage and that stage, but they could all be added at once. And knowing there are seven and not only the five that are used, tells you ways you can make it even better. While there are still other ingredients you might like to add for your own personal satisfaction, such as specific curry blends or certain chile powders or pastes, turmeric, tamarind, cardamon, saffron, whatever you like.

For Champon you mix pork and seafood; fish, shrimp and squid.

Americans like bacon where Asians use pork belly and Italians use pancetta. Bacon is salt-cured and often smoked. Bacon has stronger flavor. The point is, you don't have to go out and buy pork belly. Slipshod inexpensive bacon will do.

Champon is a mess of vegetables. And noodles. Honestly, they all look like a clean out the refrigerator thing. Just lookit'em. What, no egg? Use whatever you have. All of whatever you have. Make sure you have bean sprouts and snow peas, cabbages, things to lend it some credence.

Compare, nothing so tidy as sukiyaki.

And where the woman in the video uses three pots, know you can do this in one. No need for those first things to be in a separate pot, and cook the noodles right in the broth. For a savings of cleaning of two pots.