Another delicious furikake recipe to share with you! For those just tuning in, furikake is a popular table seasoning in Japan that comes in many flavors. Furi means shake and kake means sprinkle, so furikake is the perfect condiment to sprinkle on top of rice, noodles, soups, eggs, pizza… whatever sounds good! It adds a little extra umami flavor to every bite!
With the semester well underway and a heavy workload upon me, I’ve had such a busy schedule the past couple of weeks that when it comes to food, I just want to keep it simple. And simple usually consists of an increased consumption of plain rice. It’s a classic, right? Can’t go wrong. But after a while, simple becomes boring, or rather, monotonous and uneventful. When you don’t have the time to cook something else, you’ve got to get creative to jazz things up a bit. And what better way to add some excitement to rice than with a little seasoning?!
This furikake is similar to my basic seaweed furikake recipe, with a little added savoriness to it! Katsuo means bonito and fumi meaning flavor, so you guessed it, it’s bonito flavored! I love this recipe because of the Japanese-ness of the flavor; it has a great blend of ingredients that really highlight the essence of Japanese cuisine. With a subtle bonito aroma, it adds the perfect amount of meatiness to dishes without overwhelming it.
This recipe can be a little tricky if you’re not careful with the soy sauce – the first time I tried making it I wasn’t paying attention and ended up burning the pan, it was a total disaster! So if you want to, feel free to leave the soy sauce out, but with a little care and attention it’s super easy and worthwhile, so do give it a try! If made correctly, the soy sauce is perfectly dried out, so sealed tight it can keep quite well! If you use it often, you can make a large batch and always have some ready in the pantry!
New to using furikake? If you’re looking for ideas of how to use it, I love using my furikake with any recipe that calls for shredded nori on top. My favorites include cold soba, plum pasta, okonomiyaki, and even sprinkled on onigiri!
Recipe – Bonito Furikake:
– Place a small pan on a burner on medium high heat. Add the sesame seeds and toast them for about 5 minutes, until lightly browned and fragrant, stirring occasionally.
– Turn the burner down to low and remove the pan from the burner for a few minutes to cool down. (This step is critical: we need to make sure the pan isn’t too hot otherwise the soy sauce will burn and the seeds will stick to the bottom of the pan!) Once the pan has cooled, return to the burner and add the soy sauce. It should bubble a little bit but not burn. Let it sit for a few minutes until most of the moisture has been absorbed, stirring occasionally. Turn off the heat and let the seeds sit until completely cooled.
– While the sesame seeds are cooling, prepare the nori. Cut a nori sheet in half, then cut in half a few more times until you have a bunch of narrow strips. Stack the strips on top of each other and cut the strips into thin shavings.
– Add the cooled sesame seeds, bonito flakes, salt and sugar to the bowl.
– Now you can mix it up and call it a day, but I’ve found that sometimes the ingredients separate over time, so when you get to the end of the batch you might have used up all the seaweed and are left with a bunch of sesame seeds. To remedy this, I’ve found it very helpful to add the mixture to a blender or food processor and blend for a few minutes. As an added bonus, it really brings out the toasted sesame flavor, so I really recommend blending it!
– Store in an airtight container until ready to use!
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