Emi’s okonomiyaki

Each family of Osaka has its secret recipe of okonomiyaki. This post is pure spying. I am going to reveal you how my friend Emi makes hers. It’s a delicious simple version very rich in eggs. Before you start, make you sure you have tasty farm eggs.

Then, you need thinly shredded cabbage. She cuts it with her big knife. The flavors are tenkasu (tempura crumbs) and thin slices of pork breast.

The batter : It’s about a tbs of grated yama imo (Japanese yam), water and flour. Whip.
In a bowl, mix batter, cabbage, some tempura crumbs and an egg.

To be always ready, Emi has a reserve of servings of grated yama imo in her freezer.

On the oiled hot plate, first some batter-cabbage mix. Then slices of pork. Then more batter. Then flip.

Then… Why that ? The goal is to make the surface uneven so the sauces will stay on top.

Garnishing : the sauces are poured on top and layered with a brush. Then she puts fish flakes.
So the sauce are :
-okonomiyaki sauce (a mix of the thick sauce and of the more liquid Worcester sauce)
-mayonnaise
And in between ?

Do you recognized ? It’s mustard that gives a spicy tone to the sauces.

So you know all the tricks, you can enjoy it at home too.

Osaka negiyaki, powered up.

ねぎ焼き negiyaki
A fresh blog of the classic popular food of Osaka to replace or complete the old tuto.
Keep it really simple and don’t believe you need many ingredients, as it’s originally poor people cuisine, that was made with what was available that day. It’s easily made plant-based.

Here is a typical list of variations of negiyaki you can order in shops around here :

牛すじねぎ焼き　gyusuji negiyaki (beef tendon)
豚ねぎ焼き buta negiyaki (pork)
イカねぎ焼き ika … (calamari)
えびねぎ焼き ebi … (shrimps)
豚キムチねぎ焼き buta kimchi … (pork kimchi)
牛すじキムチねぎ焼き gyusuji kimchi … (beef tendon kimchi)
牛すじもちねぎ焼き gyusuji mochi … (beef tendon mochi)
牛すじしょうがねぎ焼き gyusuji shoga …(beef tendon ginger)
ミックスねぎ焼き mix negiyaki …(=we’ll open the fridge and push everything there’s in into your dish)

Check list :
–negi leeks and nikomi (or any other)
-batter
-sauces and garnishing powders
-options : egg, tenkasu
-hot plate and oil

Osaka style :
Options and garnishing (negi and nikomi) are added to the batter at the last minute. Each guest chooses additions or not.

Negi, scallions, Spring onions…. that’s the base of the dish. You need lots of negi greens. Cut thinly.

This is konnyaku eringi ginger nikomi (recipe here).
I am probably the only person putting this in negiyaki. The classic version is : konnyaku gyusuji nikomi.
The gyusuji is beef tendon, with the meat that stays around, and that’s a very cheap cut of beef. It is prepared the same way I prepared the eringi. You can make some other meat or mushroom stew as you like.

BATTER, gourmande style :
Grated nagaimo (about 1/2 cup), flour (1 cup), fish flakes. And enough water to get a creamy texture. Whip well.

Grating the yama imo

Veg’ version : skip the fish flakes, replace water by vegan kombu dashi (recipe here).
Gluten free version : replace flour by rice flour.
Imo free version : replace by grated potato or corn starch + a little baking powder.

Options :

They are not necessary for the classic version, but if you feel more hungry or like them, add what you want, that’s the rule of the game (okonomi = what you want). These 2, you read about on many blogs, they are often found in the rest of Japan, not so systematically here in Osaka :

Egg. The reasons to not add to the original batter :
-some people don’t want egg (it’s the biggest allergy in Japan)
– texture, with egg, it would make it a harder pancake. In many shops, they add the egg whole egg onto the rest, already on the hotplate and break it and mix with chopsticks.

Tenkasu. Tempura crumbles.

Others :
beni shoga pickled ginger,
kimchi,
raw meat, raw seafood,
mochi (rice cakes, use the tiny cubes arare, or thin slices),
tofu, cheese,
other veggies, sausage, ham, veggie pickles (tsukemono), salty seafood…

Heat the hot plate (your skillet). Pass oil with a kitchen paper.

MIXING :
In a bowl, put a cup of negi, 1/4 cup of nikomi, other options, a whole egg if you use it, a cup of batter. You can add more fish flakes if you wish. Mix roughly with chopsticks or a fork.

COOKING
Pour everything on the plate, at middle heat. You can cover or not. When it’s all hardened, flip with 2 spatulas. (I cut it in 2 to flip with only one spatula… who cares ?).

TOPPINGS :

All optional, as you like it, if you want some. A bare negiyaki is good too.

Sauce and mayo :

-the sauce is a thickened and sweetened worcester. The original sauce (called Ikari) was a copycat of LeaPerrins, sold to Kobe’s Brit expats.
Here I have a ready sauce, which is plant-based. If you don’t have it, LeaPerrins steak sauce is very similar. Or thicken the liquid classic worcester with corn starch (simmer a little, sweeten to taste) or by mixing with ketchup. Many shops make their sauce that way.Use a brush to paint it on the top.

-the mayonnaise. It is made more liquid by adding either milk, white wine or lemon juice. (to make easy egg mayo /// to make tofunaise).
To make nice drizzles, put the sauce and mayo in some plastic bottles with a tubular top. I don’t have that.

Variations :
-ketchup
–shoyu (soy sauce, thickened)
–ponzu (soy sauce + citrus juice)
-steak sauces

Powders (found in Japanese grocery stores) :
–kezuribushi fish flakes, or fish powder
–aonori seaweed
–shichimi togarashi, 7 spice mix

SERVING
When it’s cooked, put the heat on minimum, decorate.
Let on the plate while eating. Cut small wedges that you push toward guests that can heat directly from the plate, or on a small plate, while the rest stays hot.

Calling the Spring with a green tempura

Japanese tempura would be related to Christian Lent. That sound weird but it seems the dish appeared when the Portuguese Jesuits visited the reclusive Japan of 16th century and brought many new things. The habit of frying food in batter is one of them. Particularly, the missionaries would do donuts for the Carnival preceding tempora (Lent in kitchen Latin), so the Japanese associated fried food and the word tempora, tempura~whatever and it became tempura. Maybe.

Greens. Fresh herbs and veggies.

Fried into tempura.
It’s totally plant-based as it’s a simple eggless tempura batter. The batter is flour, ice cold water and tempura baking powder that I bought. It is like ordinary BP with turmeric added for the color.

tempura tutorial

The freshly made tempura are excellent dipped in tsuyu (dashi broth, soy sauce and a little mirin, reheated together). I add chili pepper to mine.

It’s tsubomina (click here to read about this veggie).

Broccoli leaf.

The leaves of broccoli are excellent, don’t throw them away. That’s what you’d lose :

All herbs can be fried in small bunches. Dill.

Parsley.

Broccoli.

Let’s make tempura

Making the assorted tempura you see in this previous post.

Veggies. Sweet potato and kabocha pumpkin sliced finely. Otherwise, pre-cooking would be required,
Onion, kakinoki-take (persimon tree mushrooms) and shishito cook quickly.

Oysters are more often prepared as “fried oysters” with bread crumbs, but the tempura variation exists.
kaki furai (oysters fried with bread crumbs)

Seafood. Oysters are shelled and rinsed. Calamari is cut, you can take out the skin (as it retracts while frying, but you loose the red color). The shrimps : the tails are kept, the long black intestine is taken away. As shrimps and calamari curl, you need to support them with toothpicks or whatever, and then take away the picks before serving (pro style). I simply made them skewers (kushi katsu style).

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Koromo (tempura batter, Japanese classic recipe) :

ice cold water
a cold egg
cold all purpose flour
(in Summer, store the flour a few hours in the fridge)

In a cup (it’s 200 ml in Japan), break the egg and complete with water. Pour in a bowl, whisk the egg and water.
Add 1 cup of flour, beat roughly. You want to get some lumps on flour still floating in the batter. These lumps will become the tempura blossoms.
Dip one item, fry…etc. You can add a little more flour each few items to get new lumps if they are all dissolved.
******************
This is the classic recipe they teach at school -yes, there are cooking classes. And that’s what most pros do too. You improve your tempura by training at it, getting a better gesture, adjusting the amount of flour. I have margin for improvement…

There exist alternative recipes for “vegan meals” (that the monks eat once in a blue moon, for occasions), and for health reasons, also for non-fried “tempura like” recipes. Otherwise, there is no reason, I think, to change the basic.

That said, supermarkets sell “tempura mix”, some powder that are supposed to be easier to use. Easier ? Some have the eggs included. Easier than breaking your own egg surely. Most have flavorings and MSG. They give less good tempura, in my taste. I am not convinced of the interest of such products.

I fry everything at about 160~170 degree Celsius, but it’s the approximative temperature regulated by my stove. A thermometer is useful if you don’t have a thermostatic system on your stove, it shows you if the oil temperature varies… but you still have to try and judge the aspect. A way is to pour a few drops of batter and see if they stay white (too cold), slowly turn to yellow-golden (good) or become brown quickly (too hot).
Normally, veggies require a lower temp (160) and little longer time than seafood. But I cut the veggies thin to fry everything the same way…

WARNING : tempura is a major cause of death in Japan.
No kidding. It’s not poisoning (well don’t keep the oil for years). It’s not people burning themselves while frying (be careful anyway). Most dramas happen because people get house fires.
WHAT YOU SHOULD NEVER DO :
NEVER make a mountain of fried food on a big deep dish. Because the temperature of the block of food concentrates at the center of it. And lots of food produce extremely high central temperature. It takes fire spontaneously. The dish is full of flames in a few seconds, then the kitchen, the house… They have video demonstrations that pass regularly on TV, that the firemen show around regularly. Fire start suddenly and violently.
HOW TO BE SAFE : Lay the fried food on large flat dishes or grills. Do not pile them ever. It won’t take fire by itself.

I didn’t know that before coming to Japan. We made mountains of French fries in my family and never knew that and never had a fire.
Maybe because we eat them all so fast just after frying ? Well don’t take chances. It’s nothing to do to lay the fries flat.

Another style of tempura “kaki-age” :
kaki-age tendon

If I could find a pearl in my kaki-furai…

Yes, it’s oysters… So let’s bite one to see if I can find one of the famous Japanese pearl.

No luck. Next one…

I will not complete my collar today. At least, you can see the oyster retained its pearly color and glow. It is hot but not over-cooked. And around, it’s crunchy. Oishii ! Delicious.

Kaki-furai is kaki (oyster) and the English world “fry” that they pronounce furai). It’s one of the Yoshoku (Western cuisine) dish, that mean the first versions of European and American recipes that were adapted and served in Japan.
Kaki-furai is simple to do… And easy, after you missed 2 or 3.

For a non-fry version :
Kaki NOT-fry
For a tempura style version :
Let’s make tempura.

Japan was once famous over the world for its abundant production of pearls. They mastered the trick to cultivate them before others. They are still a major producer.

(yeah, they sell them, I have no relation with that page but send me a few if you want)

Well, there were oyster parks in the bay of Kobe, before the city was build. But now, you have more chances to find pearls there (many traders and artisans) than oysters to eat. There are a few artificial islands and an airport floating in the bay. So they moved the production to Hiroshima, Ise, etc.

How to :

-Rinse shelled oysters. Drain them.
-Prepare a cup of batter : Whisk egg and water, add flour.
-Prepare a saucer of panko. It’s rough white bread crumbs. Here it’s sold cheaply everywhere. But no need to import some, it’s easy to make. Just grate (with the stuff to julienne veggies) the white part of sandwich bread.
-Prepare a saucer of flour.
-Heat 4 centimers of frying oil (I used rapeseed) to 160 degrees C, in thick bottom pan.

-Pass one oyster in flour, then in batter, then in panko.
-Put it in the oil.
-Take it out when it is orange on all sides. Check that it’s crispy around and not too cooked inside. If it’s not well, tweak the oil temperature and cooking time.
-Put on a grill while you do the others. Serve hot.

Sauces :
I simply used Ikari so-su (Ikari sauce, it’s a Worcester sauce) and sudachi lemon.
Other possibilities exist, like tonkatsu sauce, ponzu, tartar sauce…

The fried items are often served with shredded cabbage (much finer than that usually, but I had the tender heart of a small cabbage). The reason is raw cabbage favors digestion of fat food. It’s possible to add a dressing.