Kitchen hour: quasi-Osaka Okonomiyaki
When I walked down that aisle, I beamed with pride. In my hand, a bag of okonomiyaki flour, a bag of katsuobushi, bottles of sauces and aonori. Kristen took care of the cabbage and meats. Pancake day. Osaka style. At least that was the plan.
We didn’t plan on being authentic. We couldn’t. An American-born Taiwanese and a Vietnamese who haven’t lived in Japan at all are not gonna make an “authentic okonomiyaki” on first try. That’s why we chose premixed okonomiyaki flour instead of grating a nagaimo, bottled mayonnaise instead of whipping up eggs and oil ourselves. But just the thought of making our own okonomiyaki in whatever shape we want and however we want it, not having to go anywhere and regretting over soggy, over-salted mashes called okonomiyaki, generated the we-can-own-this attitude that guaranteed pride no matter what the outcome. It’s a sort of defiance after too many letdowns. Instead of mixing flour with water, we boiled roasted corn and mixed flour with corn tea.
Apart from that and the avoidance of green onion (I’d add green onion if I’m making pajeon – green onion pancake, but not okonomiyaki), and impatience – pouring more corn tea than I should, then the batter was too thin and I added some more flour and the batter went too thick, eventually I got double what I intended for, which also helped because we had a lot of cabbage – we followed the Best Okonomiyaki recipe pretty closely until the next-to-last step. Once I made too big a pancake, so when I flipped it, only half got flipped. I got omelet instead of okonomiyaki, but shape doesn’t matter, right? Ah, there was also a time when I forgot to layer the bacon on top of the pancake before flipping it, so the bacon was added to the bottom instead of the top, but that’s just a matter of perspective. 😉
Quasi-Osaka Okonomiyaki (serving 2)
[adapted from Best Okonomiyaki recipe]
1 cup okonomiyaki flour (100 g)
2/3 cup corn tea
2 eggs
1/5 head of cabbage, sliced into 2-mm-thick strips
9 strips of fresh bacon, cut into 3-inch-long (8 cm) pieces or however you like
100g raw shrimp, peeled and diced
Kewpie mayonnaise
Okonomiyaki sauce
Aonori (seaweed flake)
Katsuobushi (bonito flakes)
Boil the roasted corn kernels to make corn tea (옥수수 차 oksusu cha). I just take a handful and throw in a pot of water, you should rather go heavy than light on the kernel, it makes the tea sweeter. Let the tea cool.
Chop the cabbage. Time to show your prowess of chopping without looking, which I can’t do. You’d end up with a LOT of cabbage. Make cabbage salad with kimchi.
Mix flour with corn tea.
Add cabbage, diced shrimp and eggs into the flour. Mix like you never mix before.
Plop some of the mix onto a hot, lightly oiled skillet and spread it into whatever shape, canonically a disk. Four inches across will make it easiest to flip and big enough to be a meal.
Layer bacon strips on top. Let it sit for 3-4 minutes on medium-high heat.
Flip. And DO NOT PRESS it down. You want the air in there for crunch. Let it cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Spatula it out onto a plate. Sprinkle copious amount of aonori and katsuobushi (which we forgot to do! But we used tempura shrimp to make up for that later). Squeeze mayonnaise and okonomi-sauce into your desired pattern. Or make a heart-shaped pancake, like Kristen.
Here, a lesser writer would put something cliche like “this is the best okonomiyaki I’ve ever gulfed down”.
This is the best okonomiyaki I’ve ever gulfed down.
If you bought extra shrimp, make shrimp tempura. We decided this on a wimp and protected ourselves from flying oil with plastic bags. Recommended for entertainment. 😉
With leftover batter after deep frying the shrimps, make fried dough. Drizzle syrup and eat them as dessert. Can you see the shrimp imposter? 😉
Future prospects: grating nagaimo, making our own sauce, other styles of okonomiyaki.
I tested swap aave on Polygon with a modest amount and the confirmation came through pretty quickly.
1You have brought up a very great details , thanks for the post.
2Thank you for another informative blog. Where else could I get that kind of info written in such a perfect way? I have a project that I’m just now working on, and I have been on the look out for such info.
3Great post. I am facing a couple of these problems.
4I like the helpful info you provide to your articles. I will bookmark your blog and take a look at once more here regularly. I’m rather certain I will be informed a lot of new stuff right right here! Best of luck for the following!
5I’m really impressed along with your writing talents as smartly as with the format for your weblog. Is this a paid subject matter or did you customize it yourself? Anyway keep up the nice quality writing, it is rare to look a nice weblog like this one these days..
6I’ve been absent for some time, but now I remember why I used to love this site. Thanks , I’ll try and check back more frequently. How frequently you update your website?
7Good write-up, I am regular visitor of one’s web site, maintain up the nice operate, and It is going to be a regular visitor for a lengthy time.
8Real fantastic information can be found on web site. “I said I didn’t want to run for president. I didn’t ask you to believe me.” by Mario M Cuomo.
9Valuable info. Lucky me I found your site by accident, and I’m shocked why this accident didn’t happened earlier! I bookmarked it.
10Enjoyed looking through this, very good stuff, thankyou.
11Greetings! Very helpful advice on this article! It is the little changes that make the biggest changes. Thanks a lot for sharing!
12Yeah bookmaking this wasn’t a bad conclusion great post! .
13This website can be a walk-via for the entire info you needed about this and didn’t know who to ask. Glimpse here, and also you’ll positively uncover it.
14I always was concerned in this topic and still am, regards for posting.
15I don’t normally comment but I gotta say appreciate it for the post on this perfect one :D.
16Thanks for the sensible critique. Me and my neighbor were just preparing to do a little research about this. We got a grab a book from our local library but I think I learned more clear from this post. I’m very glad to see such excellent information being shared freely out there.
17I must show thanks to the writer just for rescuing me from such a matter. As a result of looking throughout the search engines and meeting principles which are not helpful, I assumed my entire life was gone. Living devoid of the solutions to the issues you have resolved by means of your entire site is a serious case, and ones that might have in a wrong way affected my entire career if I hadn’t come across your web site. Your own personal talents and kindness in maneuvering almost everything was tremendous. I am not sure what I would’ve done if I hadn’t come across such a subject like this. I can also now relish my future. Thank you so much for this high quality and amazing guide. I won’t think twice to propose your blog to any individual who should have recommendations about this area.
18You are my aspiration, I possess few web logs and sometimes run out from brand :). “Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.” by W. Somerset Maugham.
19Can I just say what a relief to find someone who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I cant believe youre not more popular because you definitely have the gift.
20Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
21I’ll immediately clutch your rss as I can not to find your email subscription link or newsletter service. Do you’ve any? Please permit me recognise so that I may subscribe. Thanks.
22Thank you for sharing with us, I believe this website really stands out :D.
23I was reading through some of your blog posts on this website and I conceive this web site is real informative ! Keep on posting.
24Heya i am for the first time here. I came across this board and I find It truly useful & it helped me out a lot. I hope to give something back and aid others like you helped me.
25It’s truly a nice and useful piece of information. I am glad that you shared this useful information with us. Please stay us informed like this. Thanks for sharing.
26I love the efforts you have put in this, appreciate it for all the great content.
27I like this blog its a master peace ! Glad I detected this on google .
28Thanks for this marvellous post, I am glad I discovered this website on yahoo.
29I really enjoy reading on this website , it has superb articles. “The secret of eternal youth is arrested development.” by Alice Roosevelt Longworth.
30