[Recipe] Okonomiyaki お好み焼き Unique and Delicious Taste

Okonomiyaki お好み焼き is one of the characteristic dishes of Japan and to be precise one of the specialties of Osaka that many know and love. Here is the recipe to try to create them at home.

The recipe for okonomiyaki includes many variables depending on the tastes that one prefers, because there are many types, such as those with meat (mainly pork), those with fish, with vegetables, and many others.

What I report here is the "basic" version, let's call it that, to which you can add your favorite parts to enrich it. In the recipe there are ingredients that may not be easy to find, although nowadays in many cities there are many ethnic shops and more and more large-scale supermarkets have ethnic products on their shelves.

INGREDIENTS :

• A medium cabbage
  5 eggs
  5/6 slices of thinly sliced fresh bacon
  6/7 tablespoons full of flour
  2/3 cup warm water
  hondashi (granular broth)
  beni shoga (pickled red ginger)
  mayonnaise
  okonomiyaki sauce
  aonori (dried seaweed strips)
  kazuo (dried tuna fillet cut into very thin strips)

PREPARATION:

We start by washing and squeezing the cabbage leaves well, once ready we begin to slice it as thinly as possible, taking care to remove the thickest ribs.

Take the beni shoga and cut it into small squares and add it to the bowl where you put the chopped cabbage. Beni shoga might be one of those hard-to-find ingredients, but it's not one of the indispensable ones, it gives a more decisive taste to okonomiyaki but you could do without it.

In the cup of warm water dissolve half a packet of hondashi (granular broth) and make it dissolve well, in the meantime break the eggs by beating them well and add the flour (better if sieved to avoid lumps) and the "broth" now dissolved in the cup. Mix everything well until you get a homogeneous mixture, quite thick and not too watery.

Now take a smaller bowl and a handful of the cabbage and shoga mix and add the mixture previously prepared with the eggs. Mix well so that all parts are well blended.

If you were in Japan at the restaurant, everything would arrive ready in a pebble to be prepared as you can see below. Follow the picture to get an idea of the procedure to follow below.

The preparation is finished, if you like it with seafood or fish, you could add pieces of octopus, or thinly cut cuttlefish to enrich everything.

Let's move on to cooking. In a nice hot smooth plate, or a large non-stick pan, place the bacon slices to heat, brown them and take the mixture prepared earlier. Give it a little turn and then put it on the plate trying to widen it a bit, a sort of mega omelette, which reaches at least a finger thick, and let it cook.

Check the cooking, the okonomiyaki must have a nice colored crust, when it is like this you can turn it over to the other side and bring it to the end of cooking.

Once ready comes the customization with sauces and more. In Japan they use so much mayonnaise that they squeeze it well onto the okonomiyaki drawing strips on it, but first brush everything with an okonomiyaki sauce that you will surely find in ethnic shops or large supermarkets such as Otafuku (おたふく), Ikari (いかり), the Fugetsu (風月), but there are many others.

Scatter the strips of aonori  and finally the light flakes of kazuo to top it all off, all you have to do is eat and savor this delicacy. In Japan there are bags in which there is already a sort of flour prepared and ready for use, much easier to use. Some recipes also include the use of starch because it has a thickening effect.

Continue to follow our recipes, the flavors from the Rising Sun that you have tried on your travels and that you may want to try again at home.