Naoko Takei

Kenchin-jiru is vegetable miso soup, originally a dish in Buddhist temple cuisine — made with vegetables, mushrooms, and dashi (seaweed stock). You can add any vegetables you like.

This comforting, easy-to-make dish of noodles in a dashi broth also features shiitake mushrooms and wakame, a type of kelp native to the cold waters of the northwest Pacific. The mushrooms and wakame boost the nutrition, and make for an extra savory broth.

Cooked in a traditional donabe (clay pot), this dish combines Japanese rice with fresh corn and the sea vegetable hijiki. Mineral-rich hijiki is reminiscent of carrot and burdock, and they’re often all simmered together in Japanese cooking. Juicy, sweet corn and the earth-meets-ocean flavor of hijiki are good together, especially with fluffy, warm, slightly sticky short-grain rice.

Use this kombu (seaweed) and shiitake mushroom dashi (or stock) in soups, stews, and hot pots — and for cooking rice, too. After the overnight infusion, the kombu and shiitake can be added to the water for a hot pot. When heated together with the other ingredients in the hot pot, the kombu and shiitake make for an even richer dashi. The shiitake also can be sliced (discard the stem) and cooked in a vegetable soup.