Soba Noodle Soup Base(Tsuyu Sauce)

5 min readJun 13, 2021

….This is the sauce to make when summer starts. It’s one of the most delicious soup base I’ve learned in cooking class. I add fresh vegetables instead of other garnish and it’s a great dish to eat in the summer when it’s hot outside. When I’m busy, I buy a soup base at the market, but the best is a homemade one.

Servings: 1500 ml

Time: 30 minutes plus 12 hours soaking dried anchovy, kelp, dried shiitake mushrooms with hot water

Ingredients:

30 g dried anchovy
25 g kelp
30 g dried shiitake mushrooms
3 cup Mirin
1 cup sake
2 cup soy sauce
60 g Bonita flakes
2 Ts sugar
3 Ts hondashi
3 cup water

Cooking Instructions:

Heat a pan with low heat and stir fry the dried anchovy for 1–2 minutes(it removes a fishy smell). Set aside.

2. Heat a pot with medium high heat and add the water into the pot to boil.

3. Turn off the heat and soak the kelp, stirred dried anchovy, and dried shiitake mushrooms into the pot with a lid for 12 hours.

4. After 12 hours, sift the broth with a strainer. Take 2 cup broth and set aside.

5. Heat a pot with medium high heat and add the Mirin and sake into the pot to boil the pot without the lid to flambé for 3 minutes(flambé, process of blowing off alcohol).

6. Add 2 cups broth into the pot to boil.

7. Add the soy sauce into the pot to boil and turn off the heat when the soy sauce start to boil.

8. Turn off the heat. Add the Bonita flakes into the pot with a lid for 5 minutes(do not boil).

7. After 5 minutes, sift the broth with a cheese cloth. Put the broth into the pot.

8. Heat the pot with medium heat and add the sugar and hondashi into the pot to boil them for 3–4 minutes(long-term storage possible).

9. Turn off the heat and cool down. Dilute and use as soba soup(soup base: water=1: 1 or 1.5, depends on person).

10. To sterilize the glass jar, put water in a pot and the glass jar upside-down. When the water starts to boil, boil it for 10 minutes with low heat.