hojicha okayu

Last year we tried Shimabara tea and enjoyed them.

Since I needed to pick up some hojicha (roasted green tea) for a recipe I wanted to try, I was pleased to see them in Umeda the other day.

This morning we had hojicha okayu.

Now that I think about it, it is similar to chagayu or chagai as my grandma used to call it, though I think my grandma used to use mugicha (barley tea).

Hojicha okayu : adapted from "Soup Stock Tokyo 2"

To make the stocks:
5 grams of loose leaf hojicha (roasted green tea)
1 cup water
1 dashi "tea bag"
4 cups water

Put 5 grams of hojicha in 1 cup of water, leave in refrig overnight.
Put 1 dashi "tea bag" in 4 cups of water (or the amount of water your bag instructs), leave in refrig overnight.

To make the okayu:
1 cup cold brew hojicha
2 cups cold brew dashi
1/4 cup rice, washed
toppings

In the rice cooker pot, put 1/4 cup washed rice and 1 cup of cold brew hojicha and 2 cups of cold brew dashi.
Cook on the "okayu" (porridge) setting on your rice cooker.
Serve with your favorite toppings.

NOTES: Since I didn't want to make 4 cups of hojicha dashi, I kept the hojicha separate.

When putting everything in the rice cooker, the cold brew hojicha was a little less than 1 cup, so I filled the difference with some water.

The hojicha flavor was quite pronounced.

I still need to try the actual recipe from the book I have, but at least I know now that it is relatively easy to put together.

I served this with some umeboshi and shiofuki konbu.

Oh and we've got cold temps back again after a brief "warm" spell last week.