材料 :: 一番だし

The BFF sent me a photo of a pack of freeze-dried powder dashi and asked me to look out for it the next time I do a grocery run at Meidi-ya or Isetan Scotts. The brand she wanted- 枯れ黄金だし, would usually be on the shelves at Isetan Scotts but it's out of stock right now. Meidi-ya doesn't carry this brand. For now, I bought her another brand. She'd have to decide if she likes the flavor.

Then I rolled eyes. It's dashi! GOODNESS. And this is just basic dashi (一番だし), not the secondary dashi (二番だし). I never bother with instant packs to do basic dashi! She could just cook this on her own. She still needs to boil water in a pot to use the instant pack. It's not that much extra effort if she uses actual ingredients to make dashi. A simple Google search will tell her all that she needs to know.

Dashi only requires decent quality kombu, bonito flakes, sea salt, and depending on one's preferences, dried mushrooms or dried anchovies. I bought them all for the BFF, except for the dried anchovies and mushrooms. She would already have those, or her mom would have stocked them up for her. For a laugh, I threw in a pack of brown rice too. She always chooses the worst-tasting brown rice. Dunno how she manages that. Brown rice can be ridiculously tasty. Had earlier bought her a pack of good quality black rice, and she loved it. Topped that up for her too.