Drying and preserving creates some amazingly intense flavors. A small amount adds a big punch. Here are some dried meats and seafood I use often as ingredients or base for stocks.
The dried seafood mainly lends its amazing flavor to soups and stocks. The Chinese sausage lends it fat and flavor.
Chinese sausage
Chinese sausage has a unique flavor tasting both salty and sweet at the same time. We could eat it plain with a hot steamy bowl of rice. As an ingredient we love it in scallion/Chinese sausage steamed baos, chopped in fried rice and sticky rice and best of all in joong/zhongzhi.
Dried shrimp
Dried shrimp come in many different sizes. They are expensive but luckily you don't need much to get the flavor. Find them in the frozen section or dried aisle in your local Asian market.
They are wonderful in joongs/zhongshi, sticky rice, law bok go (radish cake), and in soup stocks!
Dried scallops
Like dried shrimp, these dried scallops really carry a lot of flavor. You can usually find it in the dried food section in your local Asian market. Add to soup stocks for that delicious aroma of the sea.
Dried anchovies
Dried anchovies are used in many seafood stocks. Just a few is all that is needed most of the time. Make sure to remove heads and any innards or they may add a bit of bitterness to the stock. This ingredient is used a lot in Korean cuisine.
Dried kelp (kombu)
Dried kelp or kombu comes in large long sheets. This seaweed is fairly thick and gelatinous when it is rehydrated. It is an essential ingredient in soup stocks like dashi. Kombu is used a lot in Japanese and Korean cuisine.
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