Dashi stock 出汁

My friend is coming on Wednesday to make Zoni (雑煮), and we'll need dashi stock for it.  Since we'll be drinking the soup, I don't wanna use dashi powder to make the soup.  Well, I'm afraid that I'll screw up on Wednesday, so I decided to "practice" first.  If I fail, at least I can still use the stock powder to make the soup (of course that's not ideal... I don't wanna drink MSG soup). 

So, I made my very frist dashi stock from scratch. 

Dashi stock is not hard to make, it just takes time. To make the stock, you only need bonito flakes and konbu.

Konbu (left) and bonito flakes (right)

I was making about 2L of dashi stock, and I used about 20cm of konbu, and about 50g of bonito flakes.

1)  Wipe both sides of the konbu with a wet towel.  Then put the konbu in a pot with 2L of water, and let it sit for about 20 minutes.

2)  Boil the water.  Just before the water boils, take the konbu out.  Then put the bonito flakes in the pot.  Let it boil for a few minutes, then turn off the stove.

3)  Take the bonito flakes out.  It's not easy to take the small pieces out, so you can drain the stock through a sieve.

Tada!  That's the dashi stock!

When I first saw this recipe, I was reluctant to make it because a) it takes time, b) it's a lot of stock, and c) I usually only need a little for cooking,  so I don't know what to do with the rest of the stock. But I read somewhere that you can acutally pour the stock in an ice cube tray and freeze it.  When you need it, you just take the ice cube out and defrost it.  WOW, how come I never thought of it?  So now, if possible, I think I'll make my own dashi stock instead of using those powder! :)