Culinary Corner: Five seafood soups you need to try

4. Ochazuke

You couldn’t get anything more simple and pure than pouring green tea over rice with some salty toppings, making it a signature Japanese dish.  Most often created using salmon flakes and crushed rice crackers, it is light, yet comforting and can also be made using dashi broth, which gives it a little more punch, and is how most Japanese restaurants would serve it.

“Ocha” means green tea, and “zuke”, submerged, indicating that the ingredients are submerged in the tea. In Japan, it is most often just a midnight snack, eaten after a meal to fill up, or also as a remedy when feeling under the weather. This recipe is posted on Namiko Hirasawa Chen’s blog, Just One Cookbook – Easy Japanese Recipes.

Ochazuke (Serves 1)

Ingredients

• 1 salted salmon (or ½ fillet of salmon and pinch of salt)
• 1 cup cooked Japanese short grain rice
• 1 tsp Bubu arare (crispy puffed rice pallets) (or use Japanese rice crackers)
• 1 tsp shredded nori seaweed  
• ¼ tsp toasted white sesame seeds
• 2 stands Mitsuba (Japanese Parsey), cut into small pieces 
• Wasabi (optional, for taste)

For Ochazuke with dashi :

• 1 cup dashi
• 1 tsp mirin
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• ⅛ tsp salt (kosher or sea salt; use half if using table salt)

For Ochazuke with green tea:

• 2 tsp Japanese green tea leaves (I used Genmaicha, but Sencha, Hojicha, Mugicha works as well)
• 1 cup hot water (see the tea package for appropriate temperature for your tea leaves)
• ½ tsp soy sauce  (optional)

Method

1. Bake the salted salmon fillet (shiojake) at 400F degree for 25 minutes. If you’re using regular salmon, season the salmon with salt and set aside for 10 minutes before baking. When it’s cooked, remove the skin and bones and break up the salmon flesh into flakes. Set aside.
2. If you don’t have Bubu Arare, crush rice crackers into small pieces (you can also use a bag to crush it).
3. Ochazuke with Dashi: Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. Pour the soup into a small tea pot.
4. Ochazuke with Tea: Pour the tea until it covers half of the rice and top with mitsuba and wasabi. Add soy sauce if you like.
5. To Serve: Serve with tsukemono, such as Pickled Cucumber, as a part of meal.