One of my favorite seasonings in the entire world is furikake. This simple Japanese rice seasoning has a few variations but my favorite is called noritama furikake. This style adds bonito flakes and cured egg yolk for an extra punch of savory umami flavors.
Every country or culture has a few seasoning blends or sauces that give their cuisine a signature taste. In southern China they make a punchy chili crisp which goes great on dumplings and other dim sums. In Ukraine they use fresh dill literally everywhere. And of course we cannot forget good ol’ American Buffalo sauce.
Furikake is a Japanese seasoning blend often sprinkled on regular rice for a homestyle dish called tamago kake gohan, or seasoned egg rice. Every family has their own version of furikake, but there are different names based on the ingredients added. This version with egg yolk is called noritama furikake.
How To Make Noritama Furikake
Furikake is a very easy seasoning to make. It involves no cooking at all. Just simply mix together a few dry ingredients and bam you’re done. This seasoning even stays well in a sealed container for up to a month!
Ingredients
- 2 sheets Nori – these are the roasted seaweed sheets that you buy when you want to make sushi at home. They also make great additions to ramen or just as a snack. To get the best size, fold the nori sheet over itself 4 times and then just chop with some scissors right over the bowl.
- 3 tbsp White Sesame Seeds – roasted
- 1-2 tbsp Black Sesame Seeds – roasted
- 1 tbsp Sugar
- 2 tbsp Chopped Bonito Flakes – also called katsuobushi in Japanese, these fish flakes add great flavor to this seasoning, as well as the base for Dashi.
- 1 Cured Egg Yolk* – if you are in Asia you can often buy these at groceries, although they can be hard to find even there. I always just make my own cured egg yolks at home and use them anywhere you would use Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.
*Note: Oftentimes this is substituted with just boiled egg yolk which is crumbled – but I find that to be less savory as well as less shelf stable. Cured egg yolks can last over a year by themselves and unless you use a cup of furikake daily you don’t want to be using boiled egg yolk for stability.
The bonito flakes that you can buy are often far too large to be added to a furikake seasoning mix so just run through a handful with a sharp knife until you get small flakes. A good handful should make the two tablespoons of chopped bonito needed for this recipe.
For the cured egg yolk I use a microplane to essentially pulverize it into tiny pieces. This simple salted egg yolk ingredient has so much umami flavor – and it definitely comes through in this noritama furikake.
Just add all the ingredients to a bowl and mix together. Or you can added it right to the sealable container and give it a few shakes. Just keep it in the fridge so it lasts as long as possible, although you can leave it in your spice cabinet just fine.
How To Use Noritama Furikake
You can use this furikake seasoning so many different ways. Here are a few of my favorites:
- Directly on some hot white rice as it is the most traditional method.
- To line rice balls, also known as onigiri. My spicy tuna onigiri is especially good with noritama furikake!
- Sprinkled over grilled meats or teppanyaki. I often add this to even non-Japanese grilled meats like Korean bulgogi or pork chops!
Noritama Furikake
Ingredients
- 2 sheets Nori these are the roasted seaweed sheets that you buy when you want to make sushi at home. They also make great additions to ramen or just as a snack. To get the best size fold the nori sheet over itself 4 times and then just chop with some scissors right over the bowl.
- 3 tbsp White Sesame Seeds roasted
- 1 tbsp Black Sesame Seeds roasted
- 1 tbsp Sugar
- 1 Cured Egg Yolk if you are in Asia you can often buy these at groceries although they can be hard to find even there. I always just make my own cured egg yolks at home and use them anywhere you would use Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.
- 2 tbsp Chopped Bonito Flakes also called katsuobushi in Japanese these fish flakes add great flavor to this seasoning, as well as the base for Dashi.
Instructions
- Chop the bonito, microplane the cured egg yolk, fold and cut the nori into tiny strips
- Add all the ingredients to a bowl or jar and mix or shake.
Noritama Furikake
