Sprinkle some chopped leftover grilled fish on rice, pour on some hot tea and you’ve got chazuke, a quick meal that has been eaten in Japan for more than 1,000 years.

Ochazuke

With the leftovers from our Grilled Dried Herring article, I made a quick bowl of chazuke, or more politely, o-chazuke. Ochazuke is quick, simple and tasty. Hot tea is poured over rice with some kind of flavoring such as nori, umeboshi or in this case chopped leftover fish. Ochazuke is a good way to use rice that has been in the rice cooker a little too long.

You can use a spoon, just like for Western style soup, but Japanese usually just stir it around with chopsticks and slurp it down.

I particularly like ochazuke with brown rice and any kind of Japanese tea may be used; green tea, hojicha, bancha and genmaicha. I have even had it with maccha in a Ponto-cho restaurant, but that is unusual.

Ochazuke

Ochazuke – Pouring on Green Tea

Ochazuke – Pouring on Green Tea

Ochazuke

Ochazuke – Served