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Okonomiyaki: 30 Days of Japanese Food

January 9, 2022 | Michael Turtle | 2 Comments

JAPANESE FOOD

Day 3: Okonomiyaki

When a plate of okonomiyaki arrives, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a big pancake. It doesn’t look like one of those boring thin ones, though. It looks like the fat ones you make when the pan is too small for all the mixture you’re trying to pour in.

But although okonomiyaki is fried in a pan on both sides in much the same way as a pancake, it’s nothing of the sort. It’s a delicious savoury dish with a rather random mix of ingredients.

In fact, the name itself basically means ‘what you want grilled’, which nicely sums up the idea behind it.

okonomiyaki, japanese food, japanese cuisine, japanese dishes

The basic ingredients for making okonomiyaki are flour, eggs, sweet potato, cabbage and water. That creates the foundation and then whatever food is floating around gets thrown in as well. It’s common to include onion, meat, octopus, prawns or kimchi.

It often comes with a topping as well. In the case of the one I had, it was covered with a light cheese, a Worcestershire-style sauce and some dried fish flakes.

As always with Japanese food, there are some variants. It’s a very common dish around the Hiroshima region but there they make the pancake in layers, rather than mixing it all together.

okonomiyaki, japanese food, japanese cuisine, japanese dishes

It’s not surprising there are many ways to make okonomiyaki, seeing as its modern origin was after a huge earthquake in 1923 when people were short of food – and places to cook!

I ate my dish at a cute little bar in the city of Takasaki. Most of the patrons were there to drink and the food was merely secondary.

It was also mainly sharing food and that’s one of the great things about okonomiyaki – it’s easy to put in the middle of the table and let everyone grab a bit with their chopsticks.

okonomiyaki, japanese food, japanese cuisine, japanese dishes

This okonomiyaki was enough for a whole meal and cost 500 yen (US$5.40). It also went really well with a couple of beers!

>> You can check out the whole list of Japanese food dishes here <<

Reader Interactions

    Comments Cancel reply

  1. zoomingjapan |

    April 6, 2013 at 12:13 pm

    Reply

    I love Okonomiyaki! It’s one of my favorite Japanese dishes! ^___^
    It’s especially common in the Kansai region where I live, so I get to eat it very often – and I can never get enough of it!

    Even my father who thought he might starve in Japan when he visited me, REALLY liked it! *g*

    • Michael Turtle |

      April 16, 2013 at 10:26 pm

      Reply

      I had never tried it before but now I’m a true believer. It’s so delicious!

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This is the website of travel writer, Michael Turtle. After working in broadcast journalism for a decade in Australia, Michael left Sydney to travel the world indefinitely and write about the places, people and experiences he discovers. This isn't a diary - these are real stories from the world.

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