For all the non bento enthusiasts/japanophiles who read this blog I will give a short intro to Furikake. According to Wikipedia:

Furikake (振り掛け / ふりかけ^?) is a dry Japanese condiment^[1] meant to be sprinkled on top of rice. It typically consists of a mixture of dried and ground fish, sesame seeds, chopped seaweed, sugar, salt, and monosodium glutamate. Other flavorful ingredients such as katsuobushi (sometimes indicated on the package as bonito), or okaka (bonito flakes moistened with soy sauce and dried again), salmon, shiso, egg, powdered miso, vegetables, etc. are often added to the mix.

Essentially it’s a bento staple for making plain rice tasty.

A few years ago I was just starting to get into Bento making and decided to buy some of this from the nearby Asian grocery store. I picked the “Teriyaki Bonito” flavor after listening to people rave about bonito flakes and whatnot on the internet thinking I would enjoy it as well. Wrong. Unfortunately it smelled like fish food and tasted even worse and considering I don’t like fish to begin with I’d say it was a bad choice. I have been reluctant to try any other commercial types of Furikake and to be honest the MSG and preservatives that are used in most brands aren’t what I want to be putting in my body.

So today, I decided to make my own! Mind you this was before I saw JustBento’s whole section on homemade versions which I plan on trying out very soon. It turned out very good and made my plain brown rice very tasty, although it could have had a bit more kick. (I like flavors that punch me in the face, you know.) When I told AJ the ingredients he suggested that it was a very western interpretation of the condiment and I agree with him, but oh lordy dried fish is not something I find appealing!.

The ingredients are simple and I didn’t measure them because I never do.

Roasted sesame seeds, Black sesame seeds, ground ginger, garlic power, mustard powder, dried cilantro, paprika, cayenne pepper, sea salt, black pepper.

Basically spices mixed together and sprinkled on rice, I’m sure the variations could be endless.