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Okonomiyaki at a Hiroshima restaurant |
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Okonomiyaki mid process on a hot plate |
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Our KKC group making Okonomiyaki in Hiroshima |
One Japanese food dish from the my recent trip to Japan deserves its own blog post – Okonomiyaki. Wikipedia describes okonomiyaki as “a Japanese savory pancake containing a variety of ingredients and is derived from the word ‘okonomi’ : what you want and ‘yaki’ : grilled”. My host family prepared it for me during my home stay and then we visited a restaurant as a group where we prepared one for ourselves on a hot plate which sat in front of us.
The okonomiyaki is a mixture of batter, cabbage, pork and optional items including squid, octopus and cheese. On top of this combination are placed noodles, a fried egg, okonomiyaki sauce and mayo. My host family also sprinkled the finished plate with dried tuna shavings and dried seaweed. The dish is most popular in the Kansai and Hiroshima areas. Different regions have different proportions of ingredients. The mixture is fried on a hot plate and turned over several times like a pancake with spatulas. It was relatively easy to eat with chopsticks and has so many ingredients it is easy to find something that everyone likes.
