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1
Remove natto from the refrigerator 15 minutes before assembly. Steam the rice and hold it hot. Whisk the raw egg briefly in a small bowl until yolk and white are just unified — the mixture should be cohesive but not frothy.
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2
Open the natto pack. Using chopsticks, stir the natto vigorously without yet adding any seasoning. Continue for approximately 100 stir-and-lift motions. This is where the dish lives or dies: insufficient stirring leaves natto in clumps with underdeveloped viscosity; 100 vigorous stirs aerates the beans and develops the characteristic long, elastic strand structure — the natto should appear almost fluffy and threads should pull several centimetres between chopstick and bowl.
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3
Add half the tare sachet and the karashi to the stirred natto. Fold through with chopsticks — do not restart full vigorous stirring, which would collapse the developed strands. Taste; add the remaining tare only if the seasoning requires it. The tare is concentrated and the threshold between seasoned and over-salted is narrow.
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4
Add the whisked raw egg to the seasoned natto. Fold gently until the egg coats the natto in a unified, slightly glossy mass. The egg should moderate the pungency of the natto without disappearing into it.
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5
Place freshly steamed hot rice in a bowl. Spoon the natto-egg mixture over the rice. Do not mix to uniformity — the hot rice will warm the natto and mellow its pungency on contact. Zones of flavour are the intended result, not a homogenous blend.
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6
Scatter the chopped negi over the bowl. Lay the finely shredded nori on top immediately before eating — added too early, the nori loses its crunch against the moist natto. The nori should still carry an audible, papery texture when first broken with chopsticks.