Ochazuke is the bowl Japanese families eat at the end of a long night, at the end of a meal, or whenever there is leftover rice and nobody wants to cook. Hot tea is poured straight over rice and a few sharp, salty toppings, and somehow it lands somewhere between a soup and a snack.
The version most people know is sake chazuke - flaked grilled salmon, a torn umeboshi plum, strips of nori and a shower of furikake. Steeping a strip of kombu in the tea for a few minutes turns it from plain green tea into something with real savoury backbone.
Use day-old rice if you have it, and pour the tea at the table so the nori stays crisp for the first mouthful. Wasabi is the usual finish, though a pinch of sansho works beautifully too.
