Incorporate Kombu Seaweed into Your Diet

My usual menus:

1.Dashi-Soak a piece of kombu in 3-4 cups of water for 20 minutes. After that boil and add bonito flakes and let to sit a few minutes. I open the lid...phew the fishy odour is strong as I strain out the stock. I would prefer less bonito flakes.

You can even omit using fire by just soaking the seaweed and bonito flakes in cold water overnight. The vegetarian version is to substitute bonito flakes for dried shiitake mushrooms which have been soaked a few hours until soft or, just use kombu only but the flavour would be very subtle.

Once you make your own first dashi, you can add it to tamago, stews and enhance many, many types of dishes.

I am a lousy cook so I use dashi mainly for miso. I add tofu and wakame, the colour contrast floating atop the bowl is tantalizing to my little eyes and palate. You can also add mushrooms and radish.

When I am in the mood for noodles, I simply add soy sauce and a little rice vinegar to make a soup base for the noodles or better, udon.

A thrifty Japanese housewife will tell you to keep the seaweed after extracting the dashi stock to make a salty side dish which you can eat with rice.

2.Beans-As I mentioned here, my mom adds kombu to our sweet red bean dessert. In fact, kombu makes all kinds of beans more digestible. People who have problem digesting beans will notice the difference. A 4x6 inches piece is enough for a big pot to make the beans softer, cook faster and thickens the broth.

That's all I do with so far. But I reckon this is more enjoyable than brewing it in a cup of tea to gulp down with soya sauce in the name of relieving constipation.

*I have to bury my head in a corner to succumb to a brief spell of helpless giggle, kombu-soya tea...help me God!*

I am not a macrobiotic diet fan but I think cooking this seaweed with rice, especially brown rice is another convenient and sensible option. I get mine from an organic shop-already nicely cleaned and packed. You can see a layer of white powder which is believed to be full of umami. Folks who obtain theirs in natural form would have to wash the sand before use. As a source of rich natural MSG, kombu is one of the most flavourful natural constipation home remedy to me. Yum!

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