Suimono Clear Soup Refined Japanese Stock — Cook

Ingredients

For the ichiban dashi
1 litre water
20 g kombu
30 g katsuobushi (bonito flakes), first-draw only; do not press or squeeze
For seasoning
3 g fine sea salt, primary seasoning
2 ml light soy sauce (usukuchi), for colour only
5 ml mirin, for body
Main item (spring composition)
4 hamaguri clams, one per bowl; scrubbed
Garnish
4 mitsuba (Japanese trefoil) sprigs, stems tied loosely or left whole
4 yuzu peel strips, cut to a fine strip; float on surface

Method

1
Warm the lacquered bowls by filling each with hot water; discard the water immediately before serving. This step prevents the bowl from cooling the dashi on contact.
2
Draw the ichiban dashi: place kombu in cold water, bring slowly toward a simmer, and remove the kombu just before the water boils. Add the katsuobushi, allow it to sink undisturbed, then remove the pan from heat. Do not stir. After two minutes, strain through a fine cloth without pressing. The finished dashi must be golden-amber and perfectly clear — no suspended particles, no turbidity.
3
Season the strained dashi with salt, the small measure of light soy, and the mirin. Taste: the dashi should read as itself — delicate umami — with only a whisper of seasoning behind it. Correct salt before adding the main items.
4
This is where the dish lives or dies: hold the seasoned dashi at exactly 80 °C — never a rolling boil, which would cloud it and drive off fragrance. Lower the clams into the dashi and simmer gently for three minutes. Remove the clams the moment the shells open. Strain the dashi once more through a fine cloth to recapture absolute clarity.
5
Place one opened clam in each warmed bowl with a sprig of mitsuba. Ladle the clear dashi over them. Float a strip of yuzu peel on the surface. Cover each bowl immediately with its lid.
6
Serve at once. The guest lifts the lid and receives the concentrated fragrance of yuzu and dashi before the first sip — the bowl should be hot to the touch, the soup within at approximately 70 °C.