NANI COOKS! — Ochazuke; The Easiest Hangover Remedy Especially For Lazy People!
With Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day around the corner, a lot of us will probably be busy clinking glasses while celebrating this festive season! And if you happen to wake up with a hangover, here is a simple recipe that can help you ease your headache! What’s even more ideal? This remedy involves (almost) no cooking at all, so while the technology does its wonders, your hangover would not be exacerbated too!
Join us for another NANI Cooks! recipe; our well-loved cooking series where we recreate Japanese recipes at home to show that you don’t need fanciful ingredients and equipment to create an authentic and delicious Japanese meal. Our recipes are quick, simple, and fuss-free with most of them taking less than one hour to recreate. Check out some of our previous recreations like Ozoni (Japanese New Year Soup), Okonomiyaki, and Gyudon here!
In today’s NANI Cooks! recipe, we are going to recreate Ochazuke, a bowl of rice with savoury ingredients soaked in hot green tea, dashi, or water! This is bound to curb all the junk food cravings, satisfy your palate, and cure that hangover! Stay tuned to the end of the article for a video recipe!
What is Ochazuke?
Source: MasterClass
Ochazuke, is a Japanese dish made by pouring green tea, hot water, or dashi broth over cooked rice with various toppings. The name “Ochazuke” translates to “tea” (Ocha), and “to submerge” (Zuke). In the olden days, this dish was popular during the Edo period when it was served to soldiers to build stamina and stave off hunger before battle.
It is also a favourite amongst Japanese students burning the midnight oil, or amongst Japanese businessmen who need something quick and easy before heading back to work. The dish is a perfect meal to ease your hunger, and many Japanese often consume it when they are feeling under the weather — think of it as the Japanese chicken noodle soup that Westerners enjoy! Ochazuke also provides a yummy way to use up your leftover rice!
Ochazuke is widely customisable, and you can easily swap out ingredients for staples that you already have. Some of the most common ingredients used in a typical Ochazuke are:
Salmon
Nori (Seaweed)
Mentaiko
Ikura (Salmon roe)
Arare (Crispy rice puffs)
Furikake
Tamago (As a vegetarian alternative)
Feel free to add any ingredients you want! After all, Ochazuke is all about making you feel better!
Without further ado, let’s get to cooking!
Ingredients
Serves 1
1 Salmon fillet
1 sachet of green tea
1/2 cup of rice
Furikake
Nori (Seaweed) strips
Soya sauce (optional)
Ikura (Salmon roe) (optional)
Pro tip: Ochazuke is extremely customisable, so feel free to get creative! Swap out, add or omit ingredients!
Step 1
Lightly salt your salmon, and let it sit for a few minutes while your rice is cooking!
Step 2
Cook your rice!
Pro tip: If you are using Japanese rice, do allow the rice to soak for at least 20 minutes before cooking to ensure that your rice is tender and fully cooked through!
Step 3
Add your salmon to your air fryer for 10-12 minutes, or cook on an oiled, heated pan!
Step 4
Once your salmon is fully cooked, flake your fish and set aside!
Step 5
Steep your green tea and set aside!
Pro tip: Ensure that your water isn’t boiling hot, as we don’t want the color of the tea to darken too much! Temper it with room temperature water if needed!
Step 6
Scoop your rice into a bowl, and add your Furikake!
Add your flaked salmon!
Add your seaweed strips!
And add your Ikura!
Pro tip: You can add a few drops of soy sauce to your liking at this stage!
Final step
Lastly, carefully pour your green tea into the bowl!
Viola!
And just like that, we are done! Have you noticed? No cooking was involved at all except that if you do not have an air fryer, you would need to grill your salmon over the heated pan! We kid you not, this is probably one of the easiest recipes yet!
The dish was actually extremely flavourful and exceeded my expectations (since I thought that with minimal seasoning it would turn out to be pretty bland). Now I do understand why this is many Japanese’s favorite food item!
If you aren’t a fan of green tea, you can also swap out for Hojicha or Sencha tea! Or, you can skip the tea and replace it with homemade or store-bought dashi stock, or even use hot water! The possibilities are endless, so get creative!
Video Recipe Here!
Enjoying our NANI Cooks! series? Check out our previous recipes below!
