Okonomiyaki Recipe Blog

Here’s a recipe for one large Kansai-Style Okonomi-Yaki pancake from Bob & Angie [english version]:

Ingredients: (for 1 serving)

50-60 g flour, 1 egg, 1 cup dashi, 1-2 Tablespoons grated yamaimo (mountain potato), 70 g cabbage.
As desired: mirin, salt, 20-30 g thinly sliced pork, 1/2 squid, 10-20 small shrimp, cleaned and shelled, 2-3 whole oyster, oil.

Preparation:

Batter:

1. In a bowl mix egg add yamaimo.
   (Powdered yamaimo can be used)
2. Add salt, a little mirin, then flour. Mirin removes the powdery taste.
   note: Okonomiyaki mix can also be used. Just add egg and water.

Filling; Add any combination of ingredients to cabbage.

1. Dice cabbage to 1-1.5 mm pieces
2. Cut pork into 3 cm. pieces. Remove skin of squid. Cut into small pieces.
3. Wash shrimp and drain.

How to make:

1. Add cabbage and filling to batter.
2. Pre-heat hot plate or fry pan. Cover surface completely with oil.
3. Pour batter into a circle about 20 cm in diameter.
4. Cook for about 5 minutes or until golden brown. Turn over with a spatula .
5. Cook for about 5 min until completely cooked.
   Be careful not to overcook or burn. Do not press down on it.
6. Before eating one or a combination of the following sauces:
   Mayonnaise, tonkatsu or okonomi sauce, Japanese mustard (wagarashi). Catsup or any strong flavored sauce will do.

There are more pictures of the process over on Bob & Angie’s website.

You can also find a great glossary of Japanese ingredients.

I find it interesting that they say not to press down on it.  Many people say the opposite, that you should press down a bit.  I’ll explore this in a future post.

How do you feed a castle full of people in Osaka, Japan?  With the World’s Largest Okonomiyaki of course!

Amanda Kendle (via Hubpages) wrote that she witnessed the creation of a gigantic okonomiyaki — four meters wide — complete with mayo and okonomi sauce.  Apparently the humongous pancake was grilled on a giant frying pan and flipped by a construction crane.  Reported Kendle:

The part I loved the most was when it came to putting the sauces and toppings on. Another crane, like those that fireman use, came into play, with two men using huge hoses to spray okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise over the whole surface.

Amazingly, I can’t find any other stories about this on the web — this is truly unique and exclusive content. 

Anybody out there have other articles about this?  I would love to know how much flour, eggs, dashi, and cabbage they had to use.  And for that matter, how many people this giant okonomiyaki served!

On the internet, nobody knows you are really a dog… unless you make a video!  This is one of my favorite series on the internet (Youtube to be precise): Cooking With Dog.

Here is a Kanto-style okonomiyaki recipe presented by Francis the Dog.  (So cute.  Love the accent.)

Today a good friend of mine in my neighborhood, from the city of Akita, Japan, shared with me his recipe for Okonomi Yaki Sauce (aka Okonomi Sauce).  He warned me that it takes a long time, “all day!” — to make it.  With a brave look on my face I said, “I’ll do my best!”

And then with a twinkle in his eye, he told me a shortcut okonomi sauce recipe that works “almost as well”.

I have moved this recipe to its own page so it can be found easily!

Quick Okonomi Sauce Recipe

In the Kanto (east) region of Japan, in which Tokyo makes up the largest and densest part, the Okonomi-yaki recipe normally used involves mixing the batter and the fillings all together in a bowl and then grilling them into a big, thick pancake.  Depending on what you choose to put into it, it might look like a chunky green onion pancake or maybe more like a hamburger.

At restaurants, it’s customary to let the customer stir all the raw ingredients themselves and then cook the pancake right on the grill at their own table.  Here’s a picture of the seafood okonomiyaki that I ate in a restaurant in Asakusa (a neighborhood in Tokyo).

At MomoZaza.com, this blogger documented the Tokyo-style okonomiyaki that they made one evening.  She and her three friends all have different styles and enjoy different fillings.  These are cool pictures (scroll towards the bottom to see them all) — you can see how “what you like” may change the end product, and maybe give you some ideas for doing your own.

Update: apparently Momo-Zaza.com is no more! Sad… I’m glad I got their basic recipe before the site went kaput!

Tokyo-style Okonomiyaki Recipe from Momo-Zaza.com:

• 2 cups Okonomiyaki mix* (try Yama-imo Oji-san)
• 1.5 cup water
• 4 eggs, uncooked (one for each person)
• 1/2 head of cabbage, chopped finely (think shredded like in cole slaw) – avoid using the center white parts)

Please visit this blog to read about and see all the variations!  Oishii-sou!!  (Looks tasty!)

* You can use regular all-purpose flour instead.  (note: not bread flour!)  If you do that, use fish broth (dashi) instead of water, or add 2 Tbsp of fish sauce to the water.

ps.  Shortcut:  Amazon has an Okonomiyaki Kit on sale, and a good deal when you buy the kit, a bottle of okonomi yaki sauce, and a bottle of Kewpie mayonnaise all together.

Here’s a fantastic idea to spread the joy of okonomiyaki — an okonomiyaki party!

Go check out the fun pictures that bloggers Matt and Tazbaa took of their okonomiyaki, covered in the traditional Kewpie mayo and Okonomi sauce.

Very authentic and home-style! Looks yummy!

I’m getting inspired to host my own sort of “as you like it” party as my okonomiyaki recipes get better. The kitchen will be swimming in cabbage, I’m sure. Stay tuned!

Put simply, Okonomiyaki is a savory pancake that’s been made in Japan since World War II.  Like most countries in the world at that time, Japan experienced severe food shortages that led them to switch to ingredients that could be grown or bought in large quantites cheaply.   Wheat and cabbage were high on the list of cheap and plentiful ingredients, with eggs in decent supply, and thus a savory pancake made of flour, egg, and cabbage pancake was born.

The making of this humble subsistence food turned into a celebrated and specialized craft, with many restaurants serving only okonomiyaki.  The popularity of this dish, termed “okonomi – yaki” which loosely means “whatever you like, grilled”, grew and spread all over Japan, with many regions developing their own standardardized versions of it.  Over at JapanSugoi.com, there’s a fantastic overview of okonomiyaki and various ways it’s made in different parts of Japan (complete with patrons exclaiming “oishii!!” and “umai!!” in reaction to everything they eat — very Japanese TV).

My favorite style is Hiroshima okonomiyaki, often seen shortened to “Hiroshima-yaki”.  Here’s a photo I took in Kyoto during New Year’s (shougatsu) festival, where a bunch of guys in this stall were making what quickly became my favorite okonomiyaki recipe.

No okonomiyaki recipe is complete without okonomi sauce!  This somewhat mysterious, proprietary, very Japanese concoction can be made at home, but for the most authentic okonomiyaki experience, I say just buy the sauce.  You can find it at many Asian grocery stores, and it’s simply labeled “Okonomi sauce” or “Okonomiyaki sauce”.  If that’s not on the shelf, Tonkatsu sauce is quite similar, as is Takoyaki sauce.

Having trouble locating Okonomiyaki sauce in your area?  Amazon’s got it!

Welcome to the Okonomiyaki Recipe Blog, devoted to my favorite Japanese street food, Okonomiyaki!

I am collecting pictures, recipes, and ingredients from far and wide to feature in this blog, both from my own travels in Japan and from other people’s experiences.  

As well, I am experimenting with my very own okonomiyaki recipes, so I will post them with pictures as often as I can.

If you have any suggestions on how to make this blog more useful, or you’d like to contribute a recipe for okonomiyaki or okonomi sauce, please let me know!

Happy okonomiyaki making!