← Nouns Cooking · Japanese

Ingredients

• 1 pack of natto (about 45 g)
• 1 tsp Soy sauce
• ¼ tsp Japanese hot mustard (karashi)
• 1 Spring onion, finely sliced
• 150 g hot cooked Japanese short-grain rice (1 bowl)
• ¼ sheet Nori, torn (optional)
• 1 very fresh egg yolk (optional)

Method

1. Tip the natto into a small bowl and stir it hard with chopsticks 30 to 50 times, until it turns pale, frothy and very stringy.
2. Add the soy and mustard and stir about 10 more times.
3. Spoon the natto over the hot rice and top with spring onion and torn nori.
4. For a richer bowl, drop a raw egg yolk on top and mix it in as you eat.

Tips

• The little sauce sachet in natto packs usually contains bonito dashi, so use plain soy to keep it vegan. The raw yolk is optional and makes the bowl non-vegan; if you add it, use a very fresh, ideally pasteurised egg.
• Contains soy and wheat (soy sauce). Natto keeps 1 week in the fridge and freezes well.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Japanese Cooking 101 Just One Cookbook Chopstick Chronicles