Who invented okonomiyaki

Yoshokuyaki was made by spreading a flour-water batter in a circle on a griddle and topping it with negi onions and tenkasu. After the war, the method of cooking gradually changed, and mixing the batter with vegetables and seafood before cooking became common.

People started calling the snack okonomiyaki, as it can be cooked with any favorite konomi ingredients. Meanwhile, it is believed that the origin of Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is a snack called issen-yoshoku, which was sold at dagashiya candy stores.

Issen-yoshoku was a crape-like snack made from a thin batter and was served by folding the crape in half with such ingredients as bonito powder, green onion, and tororo konbu kelp inside and Worcestershire sauce poured on top. This half-folded style is still common today for okonomiyaki sold at the deli of supermarkets in Hiroshima.

The predecessor of monjayaki in Tokyo is believed to be a snack called mojiyaki that was eaten during the Meiji period. Mojiyaki was sold at a dagashiya as a tool to teach children letters by writing the letters with the batter on the griddle placed in front of the shop. Cook by yourself, or have someone cook Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is difficult to cook because it is generally made by layering a heap of chopped cabbage and noodles other ingredients on the pancake.

Cook through the inside of the pancake. Brush sauce on top of the pancake. Put your favorite ingredients on the dough pork or fried squid - note: raw squid, oyster, mochi etc. And put slices of pork with lots of fat on top of it. These slices of pork play a supportive role for the ingredients when turning it over and after it's turned over they are at the lowest position, preventing the ingredients from burning and enhancing the flavor because fat permeates all the ingredients.

By turning it over, cover the ingredients with the dough and scallop it by strengthening the heat a little. The ' kaeshi ' needs a bit of knack. When you pick it up, do not turn it over like an avalanche; instead turn it over like you are rolling it to your side just before the highest point when picking it up, keeping the upward momentum and then you can prevent the mess of ingredients.

Once you are used to it, the place where you pick it up will be the same place you put it down. It is an important point to smother it for about eight minutes until the cabbage is cooked and steamed without bearing down on it.

When you use noodles such as yakisoba and so on, fry them with sauce next to it. Shape it slightly from above with an instrument such as a large spatula and drain the vegetables of some of its juice.

When adding noodles, when it is grilled up well, put it over the noodles which are spread however, there is controversy regarding whether the noodles should be sandwiched in. Next to it, hen's eggs 1 to 3 eggs for one piece are grilled sunny-side up.

At this moment, butt the yolk with a spatula and spread it to the same degree as the dough you can scoop it with a spatula. When the hen's eggs are not grilled up and raw, put the okonomiyaki over the eggs. So the surface is covered with the eggs. When the eggs are cooked up, turn it over, coat the egg surface if possible, using a brush with the sauce seasoning and sprinkle it with aonori-ko, shavings of dried fish and squid powder, if you like them.

Usually beni-shoga is not used. Opinion is divided about pressing it when grilled up. The reason why they grill it without pressing is that if it is pressed, the air or water will exude, heat conduction worsens, the taste or textures spoiled and so, it is desirable not to press it when possible. As for grilling without pressing, during the eighties okonomiyaki was recognized as a specialty and the famous shops were introduced on TV and so on and thus the way of cooking 'it is better not to press' seems to have been regarded as orthodox.

And in the program called "Tameshite Gatten" Experience and Understand broadcast by Japan Broadcasting Corporation NHK in , experiments were conducted and it was scientifically confirmed that to steam without pressing enhances the sweetness and flavor of cabbage.

On the other hand, the reason why pressing is preferred lies in the problem concerning efficiency for the shops. Naturally it is grilled up earlier when pressed. For the similar reason cabbages are shredded. Some people prefer the cabbage cut into relatively larger pieces like they used to be. However, originally the okonomiyaki has various characters depending on the shops and some shops press it strongly with a spatula or with a weight iron for exclusive use from long ago.

The shops that grill it by pressing, state the reason being that 'it is cooked up crisply and becomes delicious because the tastes of vegetables are condensed. Common ingredients: cabbage large amount , bean sprouts, bonito powder fish powder , pork slices of parts that include relatively much fat in the pork back ribs and so on , yakisoba mostly ramen , udon, hen's eggs spread more thinly than sunny-side up eggs.

The ingredients as toppings: fried squid, raw squid, green onion, raw shrimp, mochi , cheese, Hiroshima oyster shellfish , kimuchi, garlic, Chinese chive, natto fermented soybeans , ginger, corn, mayonnaise and so on. Some people put cheese or raw green onion in the dough and grill it, but raw green onion is crunchy and has a good flavor and so it is more delicious as a topping. In the case of Hiroshimafu-okonomiyaki, when you say 'ika' squid it refers not to raw squid as in the other regions, but to the snack 'ika furai' snack of squid coated with bread crumbs often mixed and cooked.

Tenkasu of ika furai is used as agedama and tenkasu flavored with the dough blending squid powder and a bit of broken pieces of fried squid are blended and used as agedama. The okonomiyaki which includes raw squid is distinctly described as 'nama ika' raw squid in a menu. Also in the well-established shops in Mihara City, 'ika furai' which fries noshiika flattened dried cuttlefish is often called ' noshiika ' to distinguish it from 'nama ika.

After frying noodles for yakisoba or noodles such as udon and so on with a slightly salty taste, they are often incorporated to okonomiyaki and grilled up. Except in the Hiroshima region, in order to distinguish the okonomiyaki including these noodles from Kansaifu-okonomiyaki, it is generally called 'hiroshimayaki' Hiroshima-style savory pancake with various ingredients but people in Hiroshima never use this word.

They call it okonomiyaki simply or Hiroshimafu-okonomiyaki and even if you say hiroshimayaki, they do not understand it at once. On the contrary, except in Hiroshima, Hiroshimafu-okonomiyaki often refers to the one that literally incorporates the Hiroshima style and where the dough is thick or the one which is similar to 'hiroshimafu-okonomi pizza' Hiroshima-style savory pancake with various ingredients and many people in Hiroshima are disappointed.

Also, the word 'modanyaki' thin and flat pancake cooked on a hot plate with pieces of meat, seafood and chopped cabbage in Kansai style including soba does not make sense in Hiroshima at all. However, in Mihara City, Hiroshima Prefecture, some shops call Hiroshimafu-okonomiyaki, which includes soba or udon, modanyaki.

The choice between soba Chinese noodles and udon depends on individual tastes, but in general soba is thinner and has lower water content and so the texture becomes crisp and fragrant. Udon has a sticky texture and higher water content and so, if those who are not good at cooking grill it, the finished one tends to be watery. To put it the other way around, while the one containing soba can be grilled well to some degree by anybody, those who can grill the one containing udon well are very good cooks and so you can guess the level of cooking skills of the okonomiyaki shops to some degree by ordering the one that includes udon.

The taste is a bit sweet. And some shops use the sauces of the other local manufacturers such as Carp Sauce a brand of oyster sauce a bit spicy , Mitsuwa sauce a brand of oyster sauce of Sunfoods Co. The way to see what kind of the sauce is used in the shops is chiefly to check the noren a short -split- curtain hung at the entrance of a room put at the entrance of the shops because these sauce companies make the noren with their name printed on it and provide the shops which buy the sauce with it.

Recently many shops set up a nobori flag, banner, streamer too and so it is easy to check. And the instruments, such as spatulas used when eating okonomiyaki, also have the company name on them. Especially in Hiroshima City there are lots of small-scale shops because they were supported by these sauce companies to open the shops after the war and thus 'housewives in the neighborhood' could open the shops at a low price as a kind of part-time job after refurbishing some parts of their houses.

When the sauce for okonomiyaki was first produced or by what company, is not altogether clear. Higashimaru sauce a brand of oyster sauce or Mitsuwa sauce or Carp Sauce first produced the sauce.

Hiroshima prefecture was the original area producing vinegar and they could apply the technique to the production of the sauce, which, they think, led to the prosperity of the sauce manufacturers and played a role for the spread of okonomiyaki.

In Osaka many shops use mayonnaise while in Kobe which sticks to the traditional okonomiyaki many shops do not have mayonnaise and even if they have it, it is not often served unless someone specifically orders it and it's the same in Hiroshima.

The shops that put self-service mayonnaise on the table have increased even in the okonomiyaki shops, but even now, depending upon the shops, it is sometimes necessary to pay an extra fee for it and in this case, for example, individually-packaged mayonnaise sticks are served.

Recently in the shops for young people, the mayonnaise is put on when served, but, depending upon the preference or age group, many people do not like it. However, now the young people who put mayonnaise on every type of food, called mayorar mayonnaise addict , have increased and there is TV influence across Japan and the takoyaki octopus dumplings of rotensho stallholder includes mayonnaise on, and there is no conclusive theory.

How to order. The menus in the shops in Hiroshima have descriptions such as okonomiyaki, soba udon , niku meat and tamago egg , but the customers order without saying all of them, but saying 'niku, tama, soba udon iri included ,' 'soba udon and niku tama' as for tamago, they do not say tamago but 'tama' , 'soba udon and niku ikaten. And sometimes the W is written under soba udon , which means double soba udon or two packs two tama. It is not recommended for small eaters because of the volume.

When you order 'chanpon,' the okonomiyaki which includes both soba and udon one-by-one is served. It is also called Mix-Double. In Hiroshima Prefecture, you can order take out and it is put in the styrol box. Then you have to pay about 50 yen extra, the cost of the container.

If you call some shops in advance, you can order take out and you won't have to wait for it. How to eat. As for Hiroshimafu-okonomiyaki, the spatulas are used when eating. Every okonomiyaki shop in Hiroshima in past times was small-scale, cramped and narrow see the reason in the section 'Hiroshimafu-okonomiyaki sauce'. There were narrow shops with no seats except around the iron plate and the customers ate from the iron plate using spatulas.

In the earliest days of okonomiykaki, wooden chopsticks were used, but they were expensive and were replaced with the spatulas and the customers were delighted with them.

And as another reason, the shops that were originally food stalls make the customers eat it on the iron plate so it was not necessary for the shops to wash dishes because traditionally the shops had cut down the water used for washing the dishes.

Recently large-scale shops have increased and the tables and seats have also increased and the customers need to acquire the knack for using the spatulas when eating and the tourists from the other regions have also increased, and thus many shops have served chopsticks.

Just before grilling it up, many shops ask the customers whether they want to eat from 'the iron plate' using spatulas or from 'a dish' using chopsticks. Some recommend that Hiroshimafu-okonomiyaki should be eaten from an 'iron plate' because it is hot and delicious and has a unique stratified structure and the customers can enjoy it at one bite, and others say that eating it with spatulas smells like iron, which means there are good or bad points.

In Kansaifu-okonomiyaki, the majority eat it using small spatulas, but some eat using chopsticks. There are some shops where there is an explanatory description 'eating with chopsticks' Tsuruhashi Fugetsu Japanese-style pancake restaurant and others where spatulas are recommended. Area differences Also in Hiroshima Prefecture, the way of cooking varies from one area to another. In the east areas of Hiroshima Prefecture Bingo Province which is near the prefecture's border with Okayama Prefecture such as Fukuyama City and so on, there are many Kansaifu-okonomiyaki shops because of the vicinity to the Kinki region such as Hyogo Prefecture.

In the Bingo Province area where Kansaifu-okonomiyaki was originally mainstream, Hiroshimafu-okonomiyaki later became widespread. And in this area some shops add eccentric ingredients. Before on the cookery program, Chizuru AZUMA from Innoshima City, adding konjac alimentary yam paste in okonomiyaki, said 'in Hiroshima it is added,' but only in this area.

In Fuchu City Hiroshima Prefecture , ground meat or minced meat are added instead of pork back ribs and it is called ' Fuchu yaki' Japanese pancake. Many local mothers worked for the manufactures of furniture or paulownia boxes which were the local industry and their children ate okonomiyaki as a snack or supper and in order for the children to be able to buy it with their pocket money, cheap minced pork and beef began to be used instead of pork ribs.

If minced meats are cooked well, the soup stock exudes, the taste increases, the fat also exudes a lot and characteristically the noodles are fried crisply. In order for as many okonomiyaki to be grilled as possible on a narrow iron plate, their shape is elliptical. And in Onomichi City some shops add gizzards and in Kure City many shops add udon. Culture in Hiroshima. Okonomiyaki can be cooked on a hot plate in the household, however, compared to Kansaifu-okonomiyaki which is popular as a common home-cooked meal in the Kansai region, Hiroshimafu-okonomiyaki is oriented to be 'professionally cooked' or 'eaten in specialty shops.

In Hiroshima there are few shops which are half self-service like Kansaifu-okonomiyaki shops, but mostly the shop staff cooks from start to finish and the finished one is served to the customer. The dish then evolved sometime between the Edo to Meiji period. The Japanese miso paste was replaced with sweet bean paste which created a sweet snack called sukesouyaki.

During the Meiji period in Tokyo, sukesouyaki then spawned two new dishes called monjayaki and dondonyaki. Monjayaki, similar to okonomiyaki, was a pan-fried batter with various ingredients. The only difference was having a more liquid batter and that it was only made in restaurants.

Eventually, a portable street food variety called dondonyaki was created. It was and still is sold at festivals today. Monjayaki and dondonyaki became a staple meal after the Great Kanto Earthquake which caused a large food shortage. From there, these dishes spread all across Japan to cities like Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Kobe. Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, which uses a whole Chinese noodle, is a food that is high in calories.

However, you can also reduce calories. Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki has the same or higher calories as Kansai-style okonomiyaki. The amount of dough is smaller than that of Kansai-style okonomiyaki, but the calories of one Chinese noodle are in it instead. Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is a high-calorie food with an excellent nutritional balance. You can obtain carbohydrates from wheat flour, proteins from pork and oysters, and vitamins and minerals from vegetables such as cabbage, bean sprouts, and green onions.

Experts recommended using ingredients such as squid and shrimp because it has lower calories than pork and is rich in nutrition. Of course, it is basic to eat freely and enjoyably, however, it is to encourage to learn the basics of how to eat Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki and taste the local gourmet.

First of all, locals eat Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki with a spatula. Instead of cutting it in a radial pattern like pizza, use a spatula to cut it into bite-sized pieces and place it in front of the spatula. Additionally, the spatula gets hot quickly, so be sure to put it aside instead of leaving it in the center of the iron plate.

And if you like liquor, you can enjoy the okonomiyaki with chilled beer. The earliest origins of a basic crepe-like pancake date back to the Edo period period where there was a special dessert served at Buddhist ceremonies called Funoyaki. Since its establishment in , it has become so popular in Hiroshima. On Saturdays and Sundays, it is famous for the rows of lines outside the store. It has a good reputation for its deliciousness that has not changed since ancient times.

Another point is that multiple people are in charge of the roasting. Once you eat it, you become addicted to it. The shop is located in the back of Yakuken Dori-Dori, but you can see it at a glance because there are always lines.

There are many fans outside the prefecture and many people from all over the country come to seek the taste. They bake it on a neatly U-shaped iron plate.

It is fun to see the splendid craftsmanship in front of you. The baked okonomiyaki has a crispy outside and a fluffy texture inside. It is a shop where you can experience the nostalgic taste that has not changed over time.