Simmered In Miso Ep. 2: Ochazuke
Sometimes when things are hectic and my ADHD energy battery is running low, I just want to have something I can make quickly without burning myself out and there’s nothing faster than ochazuke.
Chazuke or ochazuke is simply tea poured over cooked rice. It’s legit as easy as that and while it’s not supposed to be a main dish, I often find myself standing at the stove eating it for dinner. The name of the dish is self-explanatory: rice soaked in tea, ocha (お茶) meaning tea and zuke coming from the verb tsukeru (漬ける) meaning to soak. Soaking rice before serving it became popular in the Heian period (794CE-1185CE) but tea wasn’t used until the Edo period. It was a meal preferred by merchant apprentices and servants who didn’t have time to eat a full meal and needed to eat something quickly. The rice at that time was only made fresh for those of higher standing, so merchants often ate rice cold since it would have been cooked earlier in the day and there wasn’t a convenient method of warming it back up very quickly. Pouring hot water or tea over the top of rice was a quick way to warm it up and make it easier to eat quickly. Essentially you could drink it down and finish the work you needed to do.
When making ochazuke, you need the following things: genmaicha or green tea bags, powdered kombu dashi, rice (cook some fresh if you have time, but microwaved or leftover rice if you’re low on time is fine), leftover or packaged fish of your choice (I like salmon), finely shredded nori, and wasabi (again the tubes for maximum speed). These ingredients are staples in a Japanese household and are usually not something you would need to go out of your way to buy especially for this meal. I also add wakame, green onions, and aburaage (fried tofu skin) but these are optional.
For tea connoisseurs, you can use different varieties of tea like sencha or hojicha, or you can skip the tea all together and use plain dashi broth like they do in restaurants, but I prefer genmaicha for its roasted flavor. If you don’t use any dashi broth the dish will be a little on the bland side so you’ll need the nori and other salty toppings like salmon to fill out the flavors of the dish. If you do use dashi, add small amounts in at a time as it can get quite salty if you go all in. The other great thing is you can make a cold version of this in the summer with leftover rice and add a little ginger for some zing.
So how is it made? First you either need to have leftover rice/microwave rice ready to use or make some rice. After that, you should cook your fish of choice with salt and pepper. Try not to use too much salt if you are using kombu-dashi in your broth later as it can be a bit salty. Start with less because you can always add soy sauce later or a bit more dashi powder. Next, you will need to prepare the dashi powder and tea mixture. Heat up some water in a kettle and follow the amounts laid out by your dashi powder brand. Then just pop the tea bags in with the brewing powder.
Lastly, you will assemble your ochazuke. In a medium-large bowl add the rice, fish, nori, any other toppings, and wasabi. You could sprinkle a nori furikake over the bowl as well. Then pour your dashi tea mixture over the rice and boom, ochazuke. Serve it with sashimi and cucumber sides in the summer or veggie tempura in the winter. No matter how you serve it , it’s sure to fill you up and is super convenient if you’re in a time crunch.
If you try this dish, please tag @wideislandview with your images on Instagram so that we can share in this foodie journey together! Next week’s episode will be wasabi-don!
