Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き), the name of this Japanese dish, is a combination of ‘okonomi’, which describes the very personal taste, and ‘yaki’, which means fried. In Japan, okonomiyaki is usually prepared on a teppan, a hot metal plate. This cooking utensil is often called a plancha in the western world.
A dough made from water and flour, cabbage and egg are standard ingredients, but apart from that there are fundamentally different styles and countless variations. You simply prepare okonomiyaki according to your personal taste and the dish can be modified almost at will.
The Osaka or Kansai style is probably the most common, where an okonomiyaki looks like a large pancake several centimetres high. The various ingredients are coated in a batter and fried on both sides, which is why the okonomiyaki has to be turned over once in the process.
Today we are presenting the Hiroshima version, which we love for its varied textures and which is great fun to prepare. Our guests include children and it is an exciting task for them to prepare the many layers of Hiroshima Okonomiyaki themselves. Just turning it once is by no means enough.
The number of ingredients may seem overwhelming at first glance, but it’s actually not that complicated.
You can see a small amount of runny batter on the left, consisting only of simple wheat flour, a pinch of salt, some mirin (the sweet Japanese rice wine), a little baking soda and water. There are recipes in which dashi (the Japanese basic broth) is used instead of water, but for us this small amount does not justify the effort in terms of flavour. Stir the mixture with a whisk and leave it to stand for an hour before using it. During this time, you can prepare the other ingredients.
Heat a large non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. The temperature must never be too high, otherwise your okonomiyaki will burn on the outside while it is still raw on the inside. Add a little neutral vegetable oil and a small ladle of batter, then swirl the pan to spread it out. It should be very thin.
For a typical flavour of Japanese cuisine, sprinkle some katsuobushi (bonito flakes) processed into powder in a mortar on top.
Place a handful of finely sliced white cabbage and half a handful of washed bean sprouts on the dough and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. If you like, you can also grind some pepper on top. We do this, but use white pepper.
In Japan, tenkasu is sprinkled on top of the vegetables for texture, which are baked drops of batter that are created during the preparation of tempura. It’s great that they are not thrown away in Japan. But you don’t have to transport them across oceans. A good alternative is to use small pieces of broken salty crackers of your liking. Otherwise, leave it out.
Squid is an excellent accompaniment to this dish, but this is a variation. We have gently pre-cooked cleaned, finely sliced squid in a little neutral oil and a little soya sauce on a low heat for 10 minutes and added this as well. If you are making this dish for the first time, you may want to simply skip this too.
What you can hardly leave out are thin slices of raw bacon, which are now laid over the okonomiyaki. Two tablespoons of batter are poured over it and later ensure that the bacon remains tender and the okonomiyaki can hold its shape.
Now you need two kitchen spatulas to run under the batter from two sides and turn the okonomiyaki over with confidence. Vegetables will spill out at the sides, which is always the case and doesn’t matter. Search the internet for this dish and you will find tons of videos in which this is done skilfully and remarkably quickly.
Simply push everything back together to form a round shape. Now the bacon fries on the bottom and the already fried batter on the top provides for steam in the centre, which gently cooks the vegetables. Brilliant.
Unless you happen to have a teppan or plancha in the kitchen (spoiler: we don’t), you will now need a second pan. This is also heated to medium-high heat and a little neutral oil is added. Now fry yakisoba noodles in it. These are thick Japanese wheat noodles that you can buy in Asian markets. An alternative is dried Chinese egg noodles, which are pre-cooked according to the instructions on the packet. If you can’t find any of these, use Italian bucatini, which are produced everywhere.
Add okonomi sauce, which you can also buy at the Asian market. How to make it yourself is described at the end of this recipe, as always.
The two spatulas are used again and the okonomiyaki is lifted out of one pan and placed on top of the noodles in the other pan. The thin pancake remains on top.
Fry an egg in the pan that has now been made free, using a little more oil if necessary. Spread it out with your kitchen tool to about the size of your okonomiyaki.
Use the two spatulas again, slide them under the noodles and lift everything onto the egg.
The egg is already fried and the whole okonomiyaki is turned over one last time so that the pancake is on the bottom again, as it was at the beginning, and the egg is on top.
This top is now not only significantly beautified, but also the last important elements of flavor are added.
The okonomiyaki is covered with a thin layer of okonomi sauce and then fine lines of Japanese mayonnaise. The difference to Western mayonnaise? In the end, it’s MSG. Anyone who reads our recipes knows very well that we think and cook sustainably. We describe this dish as it is prepared in Japan and hope that you will enjoy preparing it wherever you are, the way you like it. This is culture. We also hope that the planet means more to you than economic aspects.
Ao Nori, finely ground nori seaweed, should definitely be sprinkled on top. You can buy this, otherwise simply cut up the nori sheets available everywhere into small pieces and process them into powder in a mortar.
For freshness, we now cover the okonomiyaki with very finely chopped spring onions, especially the green part. Finished off with thin slices of beni shōga, pickled red ginger, which you can also buy in Asian markets.
Cut pieces from this beauty like from a cake and enjoy them with chopsticks. This leads to deconstruction and exposes all the different layers that we have just described. Big fun.
Enjoy.
And may the taste be with you.
Ingredients (for 4 okonomiyaki = 4 people):
For the batter:
100 g flour (wheat, standard)
1 pinch of salt
1 tsp mirin
½ tsp baking soda
200 ml water
Also:
Some neutral vegetable oil
4 tbsp katsuobushi, grated into powder
4 handfuls of white cabbage cut into very fine strips
2 handfuls of bean sprouts
A little salt
Optional: a little white pepper
4 tbsp tenkasu (alternatively: small pieces of salty crackers)
Optional:
200 g squid
cut into strips and gently pre-cooked with 2 tbsp each of neutral oil and soy sauce over a low heat for 10 minutes
16 slices of bacon
600 g yakisoba noodles (alternatively: half the weight of dry Chinese egg noodles, cooked)
Okonomi sauce ( store-bought, otherwise: 8 tbsp ketchup, 6 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 4 tbsp oyster sauce, 2 tbsp sugar)
4 eggs
Optional: Some finely chopped spring onion
Japanese mayonnaise
Ao nori (finely ground nori seaweed)
Beni shōga (pickled ginger)
