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.

How to handle your yama imo (naga imo, Japanese yam)

Apparently that’s not obvious when you have not seen it done. So a few photos are better than a long speech.
This veggie nagaimo is slimy and if you peel it it becomes very slippery, and you may get some skin allergy into the bargain. But that’s only after it’s peeled.

You can touch the skin without problems. So with a knife, peel a length of that long potato, or the tip if it’s the round type. Like a pencil, you sharpen it as you need.

First way.

Grating the in the traditional way in a suribashi (mortar). and you rub it against the lines of the pottery.

Second way, with modern graters.

Now you can prepare tororo, okonomiyaki, negiyaki…
It can also be cubed, sliced, etc, eaten raw or cooked.

Midori negiyaki, always greener

A good lunch : midori negiyaki. Midori means green. Negiyaki is the Osakan hot-plate crepe filled with negi greens, the cousin of okonomiyaki. (Click here for a detailed recipe.)

Of course, a negiyaki is always green. Today, it’s greener, and garnished with an egg. It’s Spring !

How can it be greener ?
I have added to the batter, the grounds of juicing . Pasted spinach can do the trick too.

Also, I had a few stalks of spinach that served to volume up the negi. Normally, only the green part of negi is used, but I have kept some of the white and some onion that I stir-fried to decorate the bottom (and flavor it).

Cooking, adding the egg, covering, flipping…

Funny how the egg yolk popped up.

I garnished with Bulldog sauce (Japanese “Worcester”), fish flakes and dry chili.

First side-dish : hearts of romaine salad with black vinegar dressing.

Second side-dish : tofu. Yes, there is a dessert (more about it here).

Negi-yaki with black and white mushrooms

A ‘shroom version of Osaka’s classic… pizza. No ! Negi-yaki. Some people call okonomiyaki and negiyaki Japanese pizza, but it’s a bit ridiculous. The only common point is both are round.
The basic recipe is here.

Lots of greens of negi leeks.

White enoki mushrooms and black jelly ear mushrooms (kikurage). Plus green pepper and ten kasu (tempura crumbs).

I threw in an egg before flipping it.

Full of veggies, thick and filling. Mmmmmm !

Negi-yaki… Home-style green okonomiyaki (via Gourmande in Osaka)

Osaka style :

Negi-yaki is a variation of okonomiyaki, where cabbage is replaced by negi green leeks. On the photo (follow like a clock ), you can see : The leek greens being cut with scissors. Fish powder Aonori seaweed powder, Natto, Shirasu fish bait, Maitake mushroom, Ami ebi (salty shrimps), Grated potato. So today's mission is to cook negi-yaki (leek-yaki). In Osaka, classical topping is "gyusuji" which is… some stew of some parts of beef. It's "my ver … Read More