Shiro Dashi
“I first discovered it when I staged four or five years ago at Quince, Saison and Manresa,” says St. Louis chef Kevin Nashan of Sidney Street Cafe. “Each place had these same bottles with Japanese writing, so finally I asked what it was. It’s life-changing. It’s a completely different flavor than anything you’ve ever had in your life. It comes in this big magnum bottle. It’s aged in barrels in Japan, so it’s quite expensive—I paid $102 for it. It’s so yummy. It’s a good Band-Aid for my food. Take our monkfish dish—we cure monkfish in shiro dashi for a couple of hours, and then smoke it for just 20 minutes because the shiro dashi is also a little smoky. It gives this beautiful, delicious aged flavor that you would never get any other way. It’s almost Parmesan-y.”
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