昆布 variety

Hi all

I’m trying to figure out what variety of Kombu this is:

This site might help:

1 Like

Not sure on the specific variety, according to this site 昆布 is classified based on different categories: species, harvesting time, area where it’s produced, product type (length, width, bundling method), etc

長切昆布 falls into the classification of product type, so in this case being 昆布 that’s cut to a length of ~75cm - 105cm and then bundled

2 Likes

Have you always been level 8? Could have sworn you were higher. Because I feel like you should have been able to read that even without knowing anything about kombu - it says “long-cut kombu”.

On the site you posted “naga-kombu” is the one - they’ve evidently written it without the 切, but the list of suitable dishes is exactly the same.

1 Like

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, I know. Yet somehow, I’d rather eat kombu than “high quality kelp”.

2 Likes

About 3 years ago I was roughly 15ish.

Then I reset about a year ago and got back up to 10ish.

Reset again a few months ago and now back to 8.

I was able to translate most of it on my own, but I didn’t have time to break down how far I got, as I posted it right before I went to sleep, and was already up too late.

So here’s what I was able to do myself.

The main Kanji down the middle:
長切昆布 - I believed this was “Long cut Kelp” pretty straight forward.

Kanji at the top:
高級 - High grade

On the right side:
北海道 名産 - First bit is obviously Hokkaido, I think I have that last Kanji right and it seems to mean local specialty according to Jisho.

This would make sense as most Kombu is harvested from Hokkaido.
Though apparently it does make a difference from what part of Hokkaido it’s from according to this video:

Note: I know next to nothing about Japanese food besides a few basic things like 寿司 and 刺身 are two different things.

I’m trying to make 昆布だし for しゃぶしゃぶ.

The left side of the package is what I’m most curious about and couldn’t figure out exactly.

I got おでん which according to Jisho is: dish of various ingredients, e.g. egg, daikon, potato, chikuwa, konnyaku, etc. stewed in soy-flavored dashi​.

Next is 煮物 - にもの - food cooked by boiling or stewing.

Then 昆布? I can’t figure out the third character, the part I was most interested in.

I’m not sure about the next bit, maybe 伸煮に, but I don’t think the first Kanji is correct, so no idea what it means, except it has something to do with simmering or boiling once again.

Then maybe 鍋用のだし = hot pot dashi?
としてもどうぞ = please use or something along those lines?

So yeah I figured it was the Naga-Kombu, but I wasn’t sure if Long Kombu and Long Cut Kombu could be two different things.

I was pretty sure I had the right stuff in general as I believe the last bit on the left says something along the lines of please use for hot pot dashi.

So according to where that site says Naga comes from and the video suggestions, it comes from the Atsuba area and is good for dashi, but isn’t one of the top three spots.

I posted this mainly because I couldn’t make out everything it said, and was thus curious, and two if someone here happened to be a Kombu connoisseur they might say, “Yeah you can use it for Dashi, but it’s as high quality as boiling my socks, so maybe you should order X-type instead.”

As, call me paranoid, but generally when a producer sees fit to label something as high quality and that’s the only thing written in English, I’m a bit dubious. :stuck_out_tongue:

Amen brother. ^ _ ^

2 Likes

Haha, I’m not quite a 昆布 connoisseur but I can help you with the readings.

The third item after 煮物 is 昆布巻 (こんぶまき). From Jisho: A type of food (sliced dried herring or other fish wrapped in konbu seaweed and boiled)​
Unknown

The item after that is 佃煮 (つくだに). From Jisho: small seafood, meat or seaweed that has been simmered in soy sauce and mirin.
Unknown-1

Yes, for the last item that says 鍋用のだしとしてもどうぞ you have the gist of it. It says that in addition to the dishes above you can even use it as a broth for hot pot.

The last suggestion is exactly what you’re looking for! You definitely can use this 昆布 for しゃぶしゃぶ broth. Let us know how it goes! :yum:

1 Like

Yah, it’s “Use in (things like) oden, nimono, kombu-maki, tsukudani and in dashi for nabe.” Or something along those lines.

Third one is 昆布巻 = stuff wrapped in kombu and boiled. Fourth one is 佃煮 = preserved food boiled in soy.

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.