I know many anime fans appreciate Japanese culture and extend that appreciation to include certain Japanese snacks. Does anyone out there cook Japanese food as well as devour the ever-popular Pocky and such? Personally, I love Japanese food. It’s simple, tasty as hell and for the most part, damn good for you.
I think that there’s a mythos and an aura of expensiveness surrounding Japanese cookery that scares people away. Maybe people feel that to prepare Japanese food you need to have time, money, and access to exotic ingredients?
That might hold true for those that live in No-man’s Land (i.e. the midwest), but even in dinky old Carbondale, Illinois we had a decent international grocery store. I got turned onto Japanese food about three years ago after a trip to Chicago where I was introduced to sushi. After that, I got into Japanese food with a vengeance!
Since there’s so much good Japanese food that’s easy for an average Joe to make, I’ve decided to review a few Japanese recipes. I also want to help steer you – the culinary curious reader – in the right direction for ingredients and supplies.
Today I’m reviewing something I recently made: Okonomiyaki (otherwise known as Japanese pizza). This is good stuff if you like truly unusual food. The word ‘okonomiyaki’ translates into two words: okonomi, which means ‘as you like’, and yaki, which means ‘grilled’. Together, you get okonomiyaki: ‘grilled as you like’.
Okonomiyaki is not pizza in the way that Westerners think it. It’s referred to as pizza because you choose the toppings to make it and you cut it into individual slices. There are a variety of toppings you for Okonomiyaki. Some may seem more foreign than others, but all are worth trying once. Here’s the basic recipe for okonomiyaki:
Ingredients
For the ‘pizza crust’:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup fish soup stock (dashi, and if dashi isn’t available use veggie, shrimp, or chicken broth)
- 1 egg
- 1/4 of a small cabbage
Ideas for toppings:
- Thinly sliced pork or beef
- Chicken fillets shredded or sliced thin
- Squid
- Katsuo-bushi (dried bonito flakes)
- Fresh shrimp
- Imitation crab meat
- Canned tuna
- Salmon
- Sakura-ebi (dried shrimps)
- Beni-shoga (red or pink pickled ginger)
- Egg
- Green onions
- Mushrooms (button ‘shrooms are good but shitake are more “Japanese†if you have access to some)
- Ao-nori (green seaweed)
- Wasabi
- Okonomiyaki sauce (or tonkatsu sauce)
- Any kinda of sauce that will go with your choice of toppings is OK. Some people use BBQ sauce or ketchup
- Mayonnaise (I used Kewpie brand Japanese mayo but any mayo will do)
- Whatever you have around the house that sounds good…
If okonomiyaki sauce is hard to come by, here’s an easy recipe:
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons sake
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
Preparation
- Chop the cabbage into tiny bits. Beat an egg in a bowl and add dashi soup, stock or water to it. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add flour to the bowl and mix well.
- Combine chopped cabbage with the flour mixture.
- Fry meat/squid/shrimps (your choice of toppings) in an electric cooking pan or a frying pan (Don’t put the seaweed, ginger, or sauces in at this time!) Divide the ingredients up into thirds and leave 1/3 of the batch in the pan. Make an 8†circle with the ingredients, which is the size of the pancake crust, in the hot pan.
- Turn the heat to medium heat. Pour about 1/3 of the flour mixture, or 8†circle, over the toppings in the pan. (You could also mix the toppings straight in the mix and cook it that way.) Spread the batter into a circle, if necessary, with the back of a spoon or a spatula.
- Cook for about 10 min and gently flip with a wide spatula or slip two smaller spatulas under pancake and flip with those. Cook on flipped side for 6-8 min or till edges are golden. You really do NOT want to undercook (or overcook) the pancake, so watch it carefully.
- Place cooked okonomiyaki on plate.
- Squirt on however much okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise you like on top of the pan cakes, keeping in mind that both are VERY rich.
- Toss on the nori and bonito flakes if you have em’
- Slice like you would a pizza and enjoy!
When I made this, I cooked the squid for around 6 minutes in a teriyaki sauce until it absorbed enough sauce to color it brown. The teriyaki squid was super-tasty and I also threw in some dried shrimp and fresh green onion topping (to go with the squid). I had these ingredients around the house, so it was a good way to get rid of the little “this and that” – which wouldn’t make full recipes on their own.
To some people, okonomiyaki may sound kinda gross, but I assure you it’s incredibly tasty. I like it because it’s:
- Full of nutrients and vitamins and isn’t loaded with grease and lard
- Inexpensive to make and is a great way to get rid of leftovers
- Fairly simple to make, only taking about an hour and some change to make.
- Gives you a good sense of Japanese flavors and ingredients.
If I had anything bad to say about okonomiyaki, it would be that it’s:
- Difficult to tell when the pancake is done since it’s loaded with all sorts of stuff.
- Might seem daunting to some people because of all the Japanese ingredients that may or may not be easy to get.
- The fact that when you throw on the bonito and seaweed the “pizza†looks like it’s alive and moving…
For those of you who live in rural areas or don’t have access to an international grocery store, I listed the Western alternatives which will do just as well as the Japanese. You can get most of this stuff at the local grocery store. If you live in St. Louis, you can visit any one of the five or so Asian markets in the area to find all of the ingredients I’ve listed.
I usually go to East East in Chesterfield, MO for my one-stop Japanese food needs. It’s a little further away than the other Asian markets in my area, but I find that since they’re is so well stocked and have such a variety, it’s worth it to me to make the drive out there.
I recommend okonomiyaki to anyone who wants to try their hand at Japanese home style cooking or for those of you who have an adventurous streak that you’re itching to indulge.
- Difficulty: Medium
- Time: 1 hour and some change
- Ingredient Availability: Easily to Moderately Available
Waah~ That looks so yummy! Thank you! ^_^ I’m going to try this out, hehe.
Deina-Kun,
The recipe is very tasy & I highly recommend it!
Rachel’s right about the katsuo-bushi (dried bonito flakes) though – it really freaked me out when they started wiggling and waving. Don’t worry though – they aren’t coming back to life (and they won’t turn into Sea Monkeys™ either)!
You’ll have to let us know how it turns out for you!
Okonomiyaki made easy? ;p
The recipe doesn’t seem to be too hard to make. I simply must raid the grocery store this weekend and try my hand on this dish.
Ten, I figure if someone can make pancakes and fry a burger they can make Okonomiyaki. It really wasn’t too hard, but then again some people don’t know how to make pancakes without burning them… *cough* David *cough*
If by “burnt” you mean “dark golden brown”, then I guess you’re right LOL!
this is not the same kind of okonomiyaki that they have in the tokyo area but if its as good as that it should be good stuff. i may have to try to make it
@dan, there are many varieties of okonomiyaki according to region; just like in the US where there’s a huge difference in pizza according to region. What’s Tokyo style? Is it more like Kansai where they layer the okonomiyaki?
it is good! i couldn’t believe
how much i fell in love with it^^
Thank you!
im introducing many kind of food especially japanese one. please link to my site. thanks.
you might want to try (for the purpose of this recipie) reducing the flour to half cup and add half cup grated Nagaimo for the “crust” it is the Osakan way to make it, and adds a bouncy texture to the dough that makes it soo much better in my opinion. That is if you can get nagaimo, it looks like a very long root, but is usually cut into smaller peices to sell, most international farmer’s markets that carry typical Japanese stuff should have it though, its fairly common. I’ve read Potato can be substituted for a slightly better texture than flour alone, but is not nearly as good as the real thing. I used to make it similar to this recipe for a long time until I happened to come across the recipie on JustHungry, trust me the nagaimo makes a huge difference!
@Deshi, I’ve read about the nagaimo, but never tried out. However, I have made this with carrots when I didn’t have cabbage handy. I must admit the okonomiyaki rocked uber hard with carrot and a tiny dash of baking powder (as suggested by someone from Kyushu), much, much better than the cabbage. It had that “bounce” you speak of. I wonder if root vegetables add that certain something that cabbage just lacks.
Try it with the carrot and I’ll see if I can find the nagaimo. I’ll get back to you how it compares to carrot unless you find out first!
@Rachel regarding Tokyo-style — it’s basically the same as Osaka style except they don’t use the nagaimo.
Nagaimo when grated becomes a really sticky, gooey mass. You couldn’t duplicate what it does with just any root vegetable, certainly not potatoes or carrots.
That said, there are some other roots in the world that might work. Cassava, aka tapioca or yucca, could do the trick — I find this root in Mexican markets. You could grate it fresh or use tapioca flour.
I’ve used tapioca flour to make an oatmeal-based okonomiyaki and it definitely gives the batter a lot of bounciness.
–Naomi
Mhmmm, I agree carrots would make a poor substitute if the binding ingredient in the Osaka-style is the nagaimo. But, it’s a good change of pace from the cabbage, and adds a nice natural sweetness. My experience with nagaimo is nil, something I’ll be changing soon (they sell the nagaimo at the Asian grocery up the street). Time to get slimy!
And the tapioca flour sounds nice. It also is a goopy addition. So gloop= bounce? Must experiment with this in other food stuffs….