Ma-kombu

Ma-kombu

What it is

Ma-kombu is cut off Hakodate in southern Hokkaido and travelled south for centuries aboard the kitamae-bune cargo ships, on what is still called the kombu road. Kyoto built its kitchen on it partly as a matter of water: the city's is soft, and soft water pulls glutamate out of the leaf where hard water leaves much of it behind.

In the kitchen

Wipe it, never wash it — the white bloom is mannitol, its sweetness, not mould. Twenty grams per litre, an hour soaking cold, then an hour held around 60°C, and lift it out before the water trembles.

Goes with

Katsuobushi (dried bonito) Gilt-head bream Pike conger (hamo) Usukuchi shoyu Mitsuba Shiitake

Same species

Gagome kombu Kombu Royal kombu Tororo kombu

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