Chazuke is a quick, simple meal, easily made tasty with a little creativity and often leftovers, then just pour on some tea and eat/drink it up! I prefer to use brown rice, genmai for chazuke (and fried rice) because of it’s more complex and earthy flavor. It is far more nutritional than white rice as well. I used some grilled ichiya boshi sardines and Miwa’s favorite, grilled ginnan nuts for flavoring. For a second course, tsukemono on rice, first with no tea, then with tea.

Chazuke
Chazuke is just tea, any Japanese tea will do, poured over rice, usually with something else for flavoring. Nori, umeboshi and salmon are probably the three most popular ‘toppings’. A plethora of packaged flavorings are available to just sprinkle on, or you can used your imagination and add whatever you like, or whatever is leftover in the refrigerator.

Ichiya Boshi Fish
Ichiya-boshi literally means ‘one night dried’, or, fish dried over night. After one night, and just a little salt, the fish is of course only slightly dried. Often small, whole fish are prepared for eating this way. I used sardines here.

Ichiya-boshi is one of those fish preparations that I hope to see adopted in Western countries. Eating small fish puts far less pressure of fisheries and as the bones and sometimes the head are often eaten too, the mineral and nutrient content is far superior to just large fish flesh.

Ginnan Nuts

In Japan, the very pungent fruit from the ginnan nut is roasted with salt and enjoyed as a side dish, often with beer and sake. If you like pungent, full-bodied cheese and nuts, you will probably like ginnan. The heavy smell of roasting ginnan in the kitchen is wonderful and strongly evokes fall and early winter in Japan to me. Ginnan are also used to flavor such dishes and chawanmushi.

Miwa and I love them and I roasted and shelled some and added them to this chazuke for a flavor that was wonderful and probably unheard of in Japan. (Japanese might look at that and think that it was created by a foreigner.) It tasted great though. I guess that I just want to show how flexible chazuke is.

Chazuke with Grilled Sardines and Roasted Ginnan Fruit

I collected some fallen ginkgo leaves on the grounds of a shrine and a church in northern Kyoto for this article, while shooting these photos I was particularly struck at how similar the namagashi really resembled the actual leaves, both in form and in color.

Ginkgo Leaves Inspire Confection
The ginkgo, or icho in Japanese, is a tree that has a leaf said to be shaped like a duck foot. Kyoto is best known for it’s maples in the autumn but around the city there are a number of remarkable and towering ginkgo trees that turn yellow and rain down thick, heavy leaves that never seem to dry out and thus are not easily scattered by the wind. They amass like snow beneath the tree.

The ginkgo leaf is the inspiration for a namagashi from a 300 year old shop in Gion called Kagizen Yoshifusa.

Ginkgo Leaf Shaped Wagashi

Ginkgo leaf shaped namagashi and real ginkgo leaves.

Sightseers Taking in the Autumn Colors in Kyoto 紅葉
Hanami 花見, or cherry blossom viewing of the spring in Japan is well known abroad, in the autumn koyo 紅葉 is just as popular. Kyoto has numerous places for koyo.

Kyoto Autumn Colors – Sightseers

Kyoto Autumn Colors – Sightseers

Kyoto Autumn Colors – Ginkgo Leaves

Kyoto Autumn Colors – Ginkgo Leaves

Kyoto Autumn Colors – Fallen Leaves on Shrine Roof

Kyoto Autumn Colors – Ginkgo Tree and Shrine

This ginkgo tree is one of Kyoto’s biggest.

Kagizen Yoshifusa Wagashi Shinise in Gion 鍵善良房
While we were walking back from some errands near Kiyomizu Temple, Miwa took me around to several of her favorite shops in the neighborhood. As she lived in the neighborhood for two years when she worked at Gion Hatanaka, she has many. Last we dropped into Kagizen Yoshifusa, a shinise known for it’s kuzu based wagashi that started around 1720. Kagizen Yoshifusa is especially known for it’s confections made with kuzu root.

When we walked in, this ginkgo leaf shaped namagashi immediately caught my eye. The simplicity and restraint in expression is representative of Kyo-gashi 京菓子 (Kyoto wagashi).

Kagizen Yoshifusa Noren

Kagi means key in Japanese. That is a key on the shop curtain, or noren. Now that’s an old fashioned key!

Ginkgo Leaf Shaped Namagashi from Kagizen Yoshifusa – Wrapping

Ginkgo Leaf Shaped Namagashi and Ginkgo Leaves

Ginkgo Leaf Shaped Namagashi – detail

Ginkgo Leaf Shaped Namagashi and Ginkgo Leaves – detail

Taste
As is typical of namagashi, the confection looks remarkably like something in the natural world that with artful folding, pressing, wrapping or sculpting is formed from mochi and filled with a sweetened bean paste, either white or red.

The actual taste though refined and delicately sweet does become less unremarkable with time.

Perhaps I digress but; Please, someone try making namagashi that tastes like something different! Enough with centuries with nearly zero variation. How about some kaizen?!

Kuzu Root – Photo in Kagizen

The Yoshino region of Nara Prefecture is famous for it’s kuzu root which is used to make some kinds of traditional Japanese confections. This photo is in the entry to Kagizen. By the way, kuzu was not used in this namagashi.

Reference and Links
Kagizen Yoshifusa website (Japanese language)
Kuzu Wikipedia article