Okonomi Yaki is like a Japanese pancake containing a variety of ingredients.
There are some regional variants. Osaka and Hiroshima are probably the most famous. They are very different styles.
YuYu is from Kobe. And Kobe style is different from them too. She also says every families have different recipes and different secrets. I’m from Yokohama, and it’s not my thing. When I ask too many questions, YuYu would just shut me down. So I try to stay out of her thing…! Don’t argue. Don’t ask.
Okonomi Yaki is really a soul food for those from those regions. I think her Okonomi Yaki is brilliant, the best I’ve ever had. But she says she can’t beat her mother. So that’s the true tradition. There is so much to this piece of pancake.
Her batter is made of flour, grated japanese yam, dashi, eggs and shredded cabbage.
She put in one more thing, but she won’t tell what. And I’m smart enough not to ask, of course.
Other ingredients are ready, but not in the batter like Osaka style. Today we have oysters from Kobe. The high-class Bigfin Reef Squid that I caught last spring.
Okinawa pork ribs, green onions, Katsuo Bushi.
She’s setting up the base. The maximum temperature at 250C degrees.
Katsuo Bushi powder.
OMG… Fatty oysters
And the squids… These guys will make the whole cake so tasty!!
So she does not mix it all like Osaka style. she sandwiches the ingredients with a scoop of batter.
And TURN!!!
Beautiful.
She pricked some holes on each. Maybe I shouldn’t say that in public…
And she opens her beer.
Everything has to happen in that order.
And TURN!!!
Wow, look at those… I’m drooling over here.
She dropped the temperature and let it simmer. A few more minutes, a few more minutes…
Done!
You are supposed to season it yourself. We had 2 kinds of sauce. Nori flakes.
Handmade Mayonaise that we just bought from Ai Ai Farm. It’s only good for a month. Must have less chemicals, we suppose. We tasted it in the restaurant and it was very flavorable and mild, no sharp stings.
I’m ready now.
If you dig in, you can see that it’s very crispy outside by savory pork fats, but inside, it’s very creamy almost like sauce, packed with seafood.
Sooooo delicious!!!
My second cake.
I love Natto (fermented soy beans). I feel sorry for you if you don’t like Natto, but this is such a ride.
We usually have cheese and eggs for toppings, but today, we didn’t need them. We just enjoyed the savor of oysters and squids and her batter with yam was a perfection.
Okonomi Yaki
