January 17, 2012

Seafood Okonomiyaki/シーフードのお好み焼き

As part of supper tonight, I made seafood okonomiyaki.
今日の夕飯には、シーフードお好み焼きを作りました。

I used store-bought, premade okonomiyaki mix, which contains yamaimo and dashi among others. Part of the reason why I wanted to make okonomiyaki was that I wanted to use up all the ten kasu (also called age dama) that I had stored in the freezer. Ten kasu is a byproduct of tempura making. You scoop up the tiny bits of tempura batter from the pot while making tempura. You can just throw them away, but stingy people like me just couldn't do that!
市販の出来合いのお好み焼き粉を使いました。山芋や出汁が入っています。お好み焼きを作りたかった理由の火等は、冷凍庫に入れてあった天カス(または揚げ玉)を使い切りたかったからです。天カスは天ぷらを作っている最中にできる副産物です。天ぷらを作っている時に鍋から小さな天ぷらの衣の粒をすくい上げます。捨ててもいいですが、私のようなけちな人間はとても捨てられません。

Home-made tenkasu in the middle:
中央に自家製の天カスが見えます。
I made a terrible mistake of putting frozen seafood to the okonomiyaki batter. Frozen seafood thawed while being pan-fried, making the batter very watery. I managed to make four passable okonomiyaki.
冷凍のシーフードをお好み焼きの生地に入れるというひどい過ちを犯してしまいました。冷凍のシーフードは焼いている間に解答し、生地がとても水っぽくなってしまいました。どうにかお好み焼きを4枚作りました。

For 4 okonomiyaki with a diameter of 18 cm, you will need:
400 g cabbage
200 g water
200 g okonomiyaki mix
2 eggs
1 pack (270 g) frozen seafood
Home-made tenkasu
Note: The weight of cabbage should be equal to the total weight of water and okonomiyaki mix.
直径18 cmのお好み焼きを4枚作るのに必要な具材:
キャベツ 400 g
水 200 g
お好み焼き粉 200 g
卵 2個
冷凍シーフード 1パック(270 g)
自家製天カス
注: キャベツの重さは水とお好み焼き粉の重さの合計と同じにします。
My toppings are:
Beni shoga (red pickled ginger)
Dried bonito shavings
Ao nori (a type of seaweed)
Equal amounts of chuunou sauce and ketchup
No mayonnaise for me. My daughter put a lot of mayonnaise on hers.
私のトッピングは:
紅しょうが
鰹節
青海苔
中濃ソースとケッチャップを同量
マヨネーズは使いません。娘は自分のお好み焼きにマヨネーズをいっぱい載せました。

Some people like to use okonomiyaki sauce, which is sweet, but a combination of chuunou sauce and ketchup is good enough for us.
甘いお好み焼きソースを使いたがる人もいますが、私たちには中濃ソースとケチャップの組み合わせで十分です。

8 comments:

muskratbyte said...

I love making okinomiyaki - lately I used a Korean mix, because the Japanese mix is very difficult to find.

okasan said...

I make okonomiyaki お好み焼きoften. I am けちalso so I, too, saved the tenkatsu 天かつ。 The okonomiyaki mix is expensive here so I sometimes just use flour. The problem is that without the yamaimo 山芋the okonomiyaki just won't hold together and fall apart. I could buy a fresh yamaimo but I would have to buy the entire piece, which is huge. I substitute potato as a 'sticky'agent but it didn't work. There isn't such a thing as 'dried yamaimo powder' is there?? I guess I will have to figure out what to do with the remainder yamaimo.

Fräulein Trude said...

What kind of seafood did you use? For mixed frozen seafood I know one good product: bag containing very small octupus, parts of calmar tubes, shrimps and mussles - this should be fine? Okonomiyaki with lots of seafood sounds very interesting.

Hiroyuki said...

muskratbyte: Korean mix? I don't think I can find one here. Sounds very interesting!

okasan: You talked about your problem in another post:
http://hiro-shio.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-award-winning-recipe-for-okonomiyaki.html
There are such products as
yamaimo ko 山芋粉,
yamaiko funmatsu 山芋粉末, and yamaimo powder 山芋パウダー in Japan.
If you can't get such a product, try something gooey instead, such as okra or enoki (as I suggested in the post above).
I think that as long as you follow the 1:1 ratio for cabbage and (water + flour) and you have adequate flipping skills (using two turners if you use a hot plate and using a big plate if you use a frying pan), you can prevent the okonomiyaki from falling apart.

Kiki: The one that I posted a photo of in another post
http://hiro-shio.blogspot.com/2011/11/corn-stew-with-daikon-in-it.html
Squid, short-necked clams, shrimp, etc.
I should have thawed them completely before adding them to the batter, or I should have placed them on the batter after I pour some batter in the pan.

okasan said...

I'm impressed that you remembered I had mentioned my okonomiyaki problem. I totally forgotten about the enoki trick. I shall try that next time.

muskratbyte said...

I've made okinomiyaki from scratch - without nagaimo, because it's hard to find here. (and expensive) I used eggs to hold everything together, and it worked fine.

Hiroyuki-san, the Korean mix appears to be exactly the same. It's just easier to find... also cheaper. Sometimes I've added kimchi to okinomiyaki to make it Korean-style, and it's delicious!

Sissi said...

Hiroyuki, I still haven't made okonomiyaki (and of course have never tasted it, the local restaurants specialising in fancy and expensive dishes...). I have already bought dried shrimp (apparently it's obligatory and it wasn't easy to find due to the recent Japan importation problems) and now I have to buy some cabbage and hopefully I will finally prepare it (although I will probably have to buy some more ingredients). I think your last photo looks extremely appetising! I wish I could have it tonight...

Hiroyuki said...

muskratbyte: Thank you for your explanation. I can find Korean nori (seaweed), instant ramen, kimchi, etc. even in my small city, but I haven't seen Korean okonomiyaki mix yet.

Sissi: As is often said, it's "okonomi" yaki.
okonomi = preference
So, just make it the way you like it!