Very Basic Seasonings and Condiments for Buddhist Vegetarian Cooking

Seasonings and condiments are used to enhance the natural flavor of the vegetables used in cooking.

These are the basic seasonings from my kitchen!

Miso

Soy sauce

Mirin, sweet rice wine adds sweetness, shininess, and depth to the flavor.

 Rice vinegar (this is seasoned) You should have plain rice vinegar as well.

Sesame oil

vegetable oil

Preferably soybean oil or 'natane yu' (a type of canola oil)

Salt

Salt is used to flavor, preserve, pickle, and to enhance the flavor and the natural color of the vegetables during the pre-cooking process.

Sugar

Cooking sake, Japanese rice wine adds subtle sweetness and depth to the flavor

(regular sake is good, too but it is usually more pricey)

                                     

Vegetarian dashi (soup stock)

to add 'umami' to the dish.

Basic dashi is Kombu seaweed and dried shiitake mushrooms.

However, anything dried usually adds good flavor and maybe used as dashi.

kombu

shiitake

I soak shiitake and kombu together 

and keep it in the refrigerator.

dried daikon. kiriboshi daikon

other mushrooms 

Other vegetarian soup stocks in different forms such as granules or powder are available as well.

However, you must be very careful as many of the counter top soup stocks are artificially flavored with lots of MSG.

Now you can begin cooking♪