Natto rice bowl

The order of stirring changes the result. Adding soy sauce first lets the salt and water interfere with poly-gamma-glutamic acid — the sticky threads. Stir 20–30 times unseasoned to develop them, then season. When the foam turns white, it is ready.

The rice is cooled because of nattokinase. The enzyme is heat-sensitive, and dropping natto onto rice straight from the cooker (above 90°C) inactivates a good share of it. One or two minutes makes a real difference. That said, this site does not claim that eating nattokinase lowers your blood pressure — the trial used a 2,000 FU capsule. Cooling the rice costs nothing, so it is worth doing.

Count the sodium. Natto itself holds almost none: 7 mg per 100 g. The sachet of sauce that comes with it is usually 300–400 mg. Use half of it, or swap in a teaspoon of soy sauce (about 300 mg) to control it. The gim carries salt too.

Only the yolk goes in for texture; the white makes it watery. If raw egg worries you, soft-boil it instead.

Brown rice is here for the fibre — 2.4 g in 45 g of natto, plus 2–3 g in a bowl of brown rice.

Do not eat this dish if you take warfarin. Unlike other vitamin K foods, natto's bacteria keep producing vitamin K in the gut, so the effect lasts for days.