Japan
Wafu Pasta
Japanese-style spaghetti with chirimenjako or shirasu (baby sardines) and buttery shimeji
20 min·2 servings
shio kombu
Fine strips of kombu seaweed simmered in soy sauce and sugar, dried and coated in salt: salty, deeply savoury, slightly chewy.
Caution: Kombu is very high in iodine, so shio kombu is meant only as a seasoning in small amounts, and anyone with a thyroid condition should use it sparingly.
Shio kombu is kombu cut into thin strips, simmered in soy sauce, mirin and sugar, then dried and dusted with salt. It tastes strongly salty with deep umami and a light sweetness, and the strips are dry, pliable and pleasantly chewy. It is used as a ready-made seasoning, scattered over rice, tossed with salads, cucumber or cabbage, or mixed into noodles, rather than as a base for stock. Because it is so salty it often stands in for both salt and soy sauce, so it should be added with care. It is sold in bags at Asian grocers with a Japanese range or by mail order; once opened it keeps a long time if sealed and kept dry.
Substitute:
There is no truly good substitute. A pinch of salt with a few drops of soy sauce and a little dashi powder gets reasonably close on saltiness and umami, but the chewy texture and gentle sweetness are lost, and in salads or on rice, where the strips should be seen and felt, the difference is clear.
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