Modern yaki

Third dish of the hot plate fiesta at Emi’s. You’ve seen :
okonomiyaki and her yakisoba. Now we are mixing both.
That’s not something she usually does, but modan-yaki (modern yaki) is a regular offer in Osaka’s okonomiyaki places.

If you have a huge hot plate, you can make it all on it. Otherwise, you can stir-fry the noodles in a frying pan with pork breast and Worcester sauce.

Then on the plate, grill the noodles and more thin slices of pork belly.

The batter-cabbage mix is the same as for okonomiyaki (more here).

Place pork on the noodles.

Cover with batter. Add tenkasu (tempura crumbs), pickled ginger and the rest of pork. Flip.

On the other side, add an egg.

Flip again.

Garnish with sauce, mayonnaise, fish flakes and aonori seaweeds.

Hot plate yakisoba with pickled ginger

Yakisoba, Japanese fried noodles. They are often made on the hot plate like their cousin okonomiyaki and actually that was the same day as this. Emi is the chef.
What gives flavor to the dish is often beni shooga, red pickled ginger. Look at this :

Emi’s homemade. You can see the ginger roots in vinegar with leaves of red shiso that bring the color.

The cut ginger.

Ingredients are common with okomiyaki : cabbage (cut in squares), pork breast… and it’s the same okonomiyaki/Worcester sauce. Add to this negi leeks.

And the noodles. They are home-made egg noodles.

Simple and delicious.

A moon filled of greens

It’s shaped like a pupusa, but I think normally they are made of corn masa and filled with cheese. So this is a free style re-interpretation, I’ve just taken the shape. It’s very tasty, crispy and filling.

The filling : miso + sakekasu (sake lees) and a little water to get a cream texture. Then minced onion, garlic and ginger. The greens are stalks of romanesco (diced) and cut kikuna (chrysanthemum greens)
The crust is likely to break a little, so the filling shouldn’t be too liquid.

The dough is like for tortilla. Today : a mix of white and whole flour, chili flakes, black pepper, a little olive oil, hot water. I didn’t add salt as the filling is very salty already due to the miso. I cooked it in a frying pan without fat.

Garnished with sauce for okonomiyaki (a veggie Worcester sauce).

The nicest leaves of kikuna as a side salad with black rice vinegar and sesame oil.

Then cut and eat while hot.

Lacquered yakitori balls and grilled kabocha

Sauce tsukune.

Sesame tsukune.
Two more variation of tsukune (meat balls) of yakitori (grilled chicken skewer bars). For simple “salt” version, see here.

Yep, they are painted…

The boiled balls (preparation here) are put on skewers, then painted several times with sauce, before, during and after being grilled under the broiler or on a brasero. I have not made my sauce, I’ve used the fruity Bulldog sauce (more here). Some yakitori shops use that, but most make their mix.
For the sesame ones, after 2 or 3 times, I stopped adding sauce but passed the skewer in a mix of white and black sesame seeds.

As I used the oven-toaster, I also grilled thin slices of kabocha pumpkin. Just like that, no salt, no oil. It’s delicious.

Vegetables (raw red onion, blanched and cooled okra and ninniku-no-me garlic stalks) and the leftover of creamy pesto dressing (preparation here). I mixed and let one hour.

Then 2 appetizers, I kept them “nature” without adding salt :

The seeds of kabocha, baked with the rest.

Edamame.

So I had a small casual dinner… well, that was a lunch.

other yakitori

Veg veg burgers, and Bulldog

Veg burgers again, but new ones. They are never the same.

The carrot and romaine are the byproduct of juicing. I have added a little potato starch as a binder, and spicing is very light, salt, black pepper, a pinch of curry spices.

They had to be “lightly flavored”, because I have put some Bulldog sauce on them…

Bulldog sauces
That’s a brand of Worcester-like Japanese sauces, that is relatively classic now as they started in 1905 it seems. Click here and follow the arrows. It’s in Japanese but thanks to the photos, you can see the ingredients of the sauce, fruits, veggies and spices, plus vinegar and salt. The 3 sauces are relatively similar but more or less liquid. I have the 中濃 (chuno) which is medium thick.
Well, I should make mine someday. They are usually called “so-su” (sauce) in Japanese conversation, as that’s the sauce by default.

Heated rounds of bread to make sands.