The dish is made up of two words: “Okonomi” translates as “taste” or “liking” and “yaki” stands for “fried” or “grilled”. Since many of the ingredients are variable, the hearty pancake is also known as Japanese pizza – although the two dishes have nothing to do with each other. The special thing about the recipe is the Okonomiyaki sauce and Katsuobushi: These are dried tuna flakes. You can find out what other ingredients are needed and how the two versions, Osaka and Hiroshima style, differ below.
If you’re looking for an okonomiyaki recipe, you’ll probably come across two different variations. In the Osaka area, the vegetables are first mixed with the liquid batter and fried together. Only then do the toppings go over the Japanese pancakes. According to the Hiroshima style, however, the vegetables are layered on top of the already cooked base dough – depending on the region, even together with other ingredients such as fried noodles (e.g. ramen or udon), fried eggs and sprouts. In short: There is no right or wrong way to prepare okonomiyaki – the main thing is that you like it. Below we will show you how you can easily recreate a simple version of this at home.
To prepare the Japanese pancake Okonomiyaki you need to get the following basic ingredients:
Another note: You can either use ordinary wheat flour or a ready-made Japanese dough mix (okonomiyakiko). It already contains all the necessary ingredients for preparing several pancakes (including flour, sugar, salt, bonito powder, baking powder and spices). All you have to do is add the eggs, a little water and the white cabbage.
Bon appetit!
Extra tip: Of course there is also a vegetarian version of the pancake. Simply skip the fish flakes and replace the seaweed with, for example, spring onions and/or tofu cubes.
And one last note: Traditionally, okonomiyaki is of course eaten with chopsticks.
Source: Chef
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