Japanese Sainbaizu Dressing

Umami might sound like the name of a Marvel comic strip character battling to the purge the earth of dark and pernicious forces but along with sweet, salty, bitter and sour it more humbly represents one of the five tastes. According to food scientist Harold McGee bonito fish flakes (katsuobushi), here representing umami, the fifth taste, are “to the Japanese tradition what a concentrated veal stock is to the French.” Umami (translates roughly as delicious or tasty), a natural glutamate, initially found in seaweed by Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda, enhances and gives body to food.
Parmesan cheese, fish sauce, soy sauce, mushrooms and tomato ketchup also satisfy our umami cravings.
This vinegar dressing gives a welcome fragrance to a wakame and cucumber salad. Deepens and concentrates stocks and soups (Bonito flakes are the key ingredient in Dashi a Japanese stock). Good with quick fried squid, foil baked whole fish and as poaching liquer for fish fillets.

Ingredients

250mls rice wine vinegar.
320mls water
25mls soy sauce.
60g sugar.
dash of mirin.
2 or 3 tablespoons bonito flakes

Bring the rice vinegar, water, sugar, mirin and soy to a boil til the sugar dissolves. Take off the heat and stir in the bonito flakes. Leave infuse for about ten minutes. Strain the liquid, bring to the boil again and let it cool. Refrigerate after use.

Ken Doherty is a chef and journalist