In my quest to eat lots of really yummy food copiously, well, and often, the okonomiyaki has often come across my plate. Oddly, not many restaurants serve it, but it is a speciality dish that actually hearkens from Hiroshima. (Baser) This dish literally translates: "okonomi" ("whatever you want") "yaki" ("grilled"), and it's the perfect dish for getting rid of leftovers (Baser). The exact concoction of the first okonomiyaki is not concrete, but it was believed to have come together sometime in the 17th to 18th century. (Baser)Essentially, an okonomiyaki is a cabbage and flour-based pancake that you can throw a little bit of everything into: pork, seafood, veggies, etc, and you top it off with some delicious okonomiyaki sauce, Japanese mayonnaise, and lots and lots of fish flakes.
I have often compared okonomiyaki to pizza. The texture is very similar and it's just as filling and viscerally satisfying. However, in reading this article, I found out that, similar to New York versus Chicago style pizza, there's a contest between Osaka and Hiroshima for the best okonomiyaki! Osakans like to use cabbage, flour, and egg for a particularly thick pancake, then add "... anything from shrimp, octopus, mochi to cheese added in, smothered in the authentic okonomiyaki sauce made of dates and Worcester sauce and powdered with dried seaweed and bonito flakes." (Baser)
However, in Hiroshima, the pancake is done in layers, then the chef will "... top it with a mountain of cabbage, grill it down, flip and top it with a cake of grilled soba noodles, also dripped with the signature sauce." (Baser)
Link: http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/04/beyond-the-bomb-hiroshimas-beloved-okonomiyaki-pancake/
No comments:
Post a Comment