Okaka Furikake: Katsuobushi Rice Seasoning Recipe

Since my family’s stock of “Furikake (ふりかけ)” rice seasoning was running out, today I went on an errand to a drugstore near my house to supplement it.

When I was hunting for something appealing in the Furikake section of the store, this classic Okaka Furikake caught my eye, and I grabbed it because I thought the Japanese rice seasoning would be a nice topic for the blog here.

Okaka Furikake (おかかふりかけ)

For the unfamiliar, the Japanese word “Okaka (おかか)” is a synonym for “Katsuobushi (鰹節)”, which is dried, fermented, and smoked skipjack tuna, also known as bonito flakes.

On the other hand, “Furikake (ふりかけ)” is a traditional Japanese condiment for rice consisting of various varieties of granules or tiny flakes processed from ingredients such as meat, fish, seaweed, sesame seeds, salted plums, and eggs.

Furikake is usually used by being sprinkled over a bowl of plain white rice to add a delicious flavor.

Thus, Okaka Furikake is a Japanese rice condiment consisting mainly of Katsuobushi flakes, which has long been loved in Japan as one of the standard flavors of Furikake.

As seen in the photos above, the Katsuobushi flakes for Okaka Furikake are typically seasoned with soy sauce and sugar, which is why the rice seasoning has a dark brown color and is somewhat moist.

Okaka Furikake is a little sweet, savory rice seasoning packed with umami taste from Katsuobushi flakes, and goes really well with hot white rice.

Recipe 

For those of you who somehow want to try the Japanese taste of Okaka Furikake at home, I did some online research about the recipe.

As the result, from this article on kurashiru.com, I found how to make the rice seasoning (4 servings) not that difficult. So last let me share the cooking process.

1. Put 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp Sake rice wine, 1 tbsp Mirin sweet cooking rice wine, and 1/2 tbsp sugar into a small saucepan 
2. Heat the saucepan on low heat and bring the mixture to a simmer
3. Then, add Katsuobushi flakes (20 g: about 0.7 oz) to the saucepan and cook on medium heat until the liquid evaporates 
4. If desired, add 1/2 tbsp parched white sesame seeds as a finishing touch and fry lightly