Angelica-style Dashi

[Emily Millard]

This is a recipe from 'The Angelica Home Kitchen'

Yield: 2 quarts, 4 to 6 servings
Cooking time: 1 hour

2 quarts cold water
1 (4 to 5-inch)strip kombu seaweed
2 cups dried shiitake mushrooms
6 T. brown rice vinegar
1/2 cup mirin
1/4 cup shoyu
1/4 cup ginger juice

*Combine 2 quarts water and kombu in a
3-quart saucepan and bring to a boil.
*Remove the kombu and save it for another us in plastic in the refrigerator, for up to 2 days.)
*Add the mushrooms, reduct the heat to low, and simmer gwently uncovered for 1 hour.
*Stir in the remaining ingredients.
*Strain the broth, reserving the mushrooms for another use. (Use them sliced to garnish a bowl of noodles or simply tosss them into your vegetable soup.)

I turned this into a creamy mushroom-celery soup by adding to the stock-pureed sunflower seed cream, put sunflower seeds in the blender with a dash of sea salt and some spring water and add to the stock, also sauteed one stalk of celery, diced, and one diced onion, and add to the stock, and also add 2 T. diluted Kombu, and a T. of olive oil.