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.

Curried chick pea dosa, with coconut gravy

An Indian brunch maybe not so Indian… Well, dosa is the pancake from India, but this recipe has traveled via Canada, it seems.

This month is a retro challenge, as we had to pick an older one we had not done yet, so mt choice was September 2009’s Indian Dosas (Vegan Style) :
Recipe here.

The 3 elements : curried chick peas and veggies, dosa crepes and the coconut sauce.

The curried chick peas with shishito peppers and kabocha pumpkin.

The coconut gravy with a shishito pepper and a little bit of habanero pepper.

I made the dosas with plain flour. Well, that’s easier and quicker, I prefer rice and lentil dosas :

red dosa
green dosa

Side veggies : goya bitter squash and cucumbers.

So let’s fill the crepes…

… pour the sauce and sprinkle coconut snow.

Yakisoba with eringii and abura-age

Today, yakisoba, the Japanese version of Chinese fried noodles. Well, that’s my version of it… well, one of them. See others at the end of this post.

Yakisoba is fast-food normally. It’s often sold cheaply on street stalls, at festivals and the teppanyaki (hot plate) shops propose it too. The basic version is made mostly with :

-chuka soba (fresh Chinese noodles that are sold fresh and cooked, they look like thick spaghetti and if you have none, cooked thick spaghetti can be used)
-oil

That’s why we said it’s fried noodles, no mystery. And low amounts of :

-cabbage (cut in big squares)
-additional veggies (cut in thin slices), few and cheap ones (bean sprouts, onion, carrot, some kind of leeks…)
-a little raw meat (thin slices of pork), or cheap seafood, or ham…
-sauce (specific sauce or thickened Worcester sauce or a mix of Worcester + ketchup…), plus additional ketchup or mayo if you want
-pickled ginger, toppings…

My version uses what I have in my fridge, and it’s usually healthier.

So, I had abura age (fried tofu) as meat.

A few Eringi mushrooms as meat too.

I had a leftover of green papaya.

I first toasted the abura-age (fried tofu pockets), set aside. Then with a little garlic and ginger : onion, eringi mushrooms, green papaya, cabbage and shishito green peppers. To the veggies, I’ve added fresh Chinese noodles (chuka soba), sauce (Bulldog).

I’ve added the abura-age to the rest. I have about half of veggies, less than one third of noodles. That’s how I like it.

On top, a little more sauce, shichimi togarashi (7 spice mix) and cut green negi leeks.

Mushroom duet creamy sauce for one-bite steaks and soba

Maybe that’s too classic for this blog : a meal of steak, pasta and sauce. Why not ? It’s based on local produce. This sauce is ideal to serve with pasta, or with meat, or with both.
The fungi are available year round but they evoke Autumn because they have a wet forest smell.

Shiitake.

Nameko (sticky mushroom).

Stir-fried with onion, a little garlic.

Creamed with coconut cream and milk and 1 tbs of potato starch. Salt. Pepper. You don’t need much as the mushrooms are very flavorful.

Wagyu Japanese beef steaks, grilled on the plancha.
Medium rare was the less I could do with this thickness.

With home-made matcha soba noodles, and the sauce.

Sara udon lunch

Sara udon with 3 greens.

空芯菜 kushinsai, water morning glory. It’s a South East Asia classic green. With the tropical weather we have now, they can grow it easily.

Green pea sprouts.

Kujo is the 9th Avenue, in Kyoto. They don’t grow them in the street now, but maybe 200 years ago. It’s one of the many Kyoto area original vegetables.

I’ve stir-fried ginger, onion, garlic, kujo negi whites and kabocha pumpkin. Then added ankake sauce. I’ve added the 2 greens at the end. That’s my sauce to pour on :