Okonomiyaki Recipe Blog

What’s so special about the kind of okonomiyaki you find in Hiroshima, Japan? 

The ingredients are pretty much the same — it’s the technique that makes them distinct.

Okonomiyaki in the Kansai and Kanto regions (aka Osaka-style okonomiyaki) is created by first putting the batter and all of your fillings into a big bowl, and mixing it into a pasty, lumpy mass before shaping it all into a pancake in the pan.

Hiroshima-yaki, on the other hand, requires a progressive layering of ingredients.  It begins with a small circle of batter on the grill, after which comes a heap of cabbage and fillings, proceeding to a fresh egg cracked on top of it all which is allowed to trickle down through the fillings and sort of glue them together.

What happens next depends on the chef, the style, and the fillings.  But usually, after the cabbage has cooked down quite a bit, the chef drizzles on another thin layer of batter, and then flips it to cook on the other side.

The effect is to create sort of a stuffed pancake.  And because the fillings and the egg are not mixed homogenously, the layered and varied textures of the pancake create an enjoyably interesting eating experience.

  In Hiroshima there’s a famous okonomiyaki restaurant called Waka-Taka that boasts the best Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki.  They’ve been doing it for 40 years — that’s more than enough time to become masters of their craft, I think! ^_^

Right on their front page you can see a progression of pictures that shows you how they make theirs.  It looks almost easy!

Most people seem to do Kansai-Style Okonomiyaki since it’s a little easier.

Have you tried making your own okonomiyaki in Hiroshima style?  What are your experiences with it?

Please post comments — I’m eager to hear about other people’s experiences making Hiroshima-yaki.

Homemade Beni Shouga: No Shiso? No Problem.

Tired of buying pickled ginger at up to $6 a canister?  I was!  But I thought it wasn’t going to be anymore economical to buy the red shiso I would need to make the traditional beni shouga.

Then it hit me.  Literally — a beet fell out of a hanging basket in the kitchen and hit me on the side of the head.  

Beets!  Of course!  Bright red and ubiquitous.  (Where in the world can you not find beets?  I wonder!)

Later that day I went out and bought 2 pounds of ginger, arriving home eager to get started.  I decided to use raw apple cider vinegar and turbinado sugar, because I like the taste and I have a belief in the healthiness in of these things.  For salt I chose a large-grain sea salt I’ve had on hand for a long time.

Next came about an hour’s worth of ginger-peeling and shredding.  I listened to This Week in Science, so at least I learned something while I worked at it.

Into the bowl went all the ingredients (recipe below), including a whole beet sliced into 1/8-inch-thin long slices.  Within seconds of each beet slice hitting the liquid, the bright red color was already seeping out and colouring the ginger.

About two hours later, I had a huge bowl of bright red pickled ginger!  And some ginger-pickled beets, too!  ^_^

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 pounds raw ginger
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 whole raw beet (medium)
• 1/2 Tbsp sea salt
• 3/4 cup vinegar

We do love our traditional okonimiyaki toppings — mayo and sauce and bonito, oh my! — but we also don’t mind keeping our girlish figures. 

Omega-3 oils are hard to come by in the modern diet, so sometimes you have to go the extra mile to fit them in — even when all you want to do is eat Okonomi-yaki!

Here’s an egg-free (vegan) flax seed-based mayonnaise rich in omega-3s that’s easily made in your blender.

Flax Seed Mayonnaise

• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds (about 1/3 cup whole)
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2.5 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp powdered mustard
• 1/4 cup avocado oil (or olive or walnut or what-have-you)

Blend ground flax seeds with water in a blender or food processor until thick. Add vinegar, mustard and salt, and blend.  With blender or food processor running, drizzle the oil in slowly to form an emulsion. Allow to cool before serving.

Coming soon: Actually Healthy Okonomiyaki?  Whole-Grain Okonomiyaki?  Is It Possible?

Stay tuned!!

I found this set of photos on RamenAndFriends.com showing the process of creating an okonomiyaki from a bowl of raw ingredients to a finished and decorated savory pancake.  It’s very typical of any okonomiyaki restaurant in Japan.

Some restaurants don’t have instructions on how to make okonomiyaki, or the instructions aren’t in English.  Use these pictures and simple instructions in order to know ahead of time how to do it!

These are good pictures, and a picture is worth 1000 words.  If you have any confusion about how to prepare a Kansai-style okonomi-yaki, these photos will clear it up.

Very rustic looking but definitely OISHII-sou!  Well done.

If you feel like being an Okonomiyaki Perfectionist, on the other hand, you will find this video quite useful and amusing. ^_^

Thanks to Free Online Japanese Recipes for helping me find this clip!  As discussed on the blog, “here are some points from the video clip to cook a perfect okonomiyaki:

• When mix the flour and ingredients, be sure to let some “air” go into the ingredients
• Don’t over beat/mix to avoid moisture come out from cabbage
• Make the thickness around 3cm (Kansai-style Okonomiyaki) “

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!