Okonomiyaki is a Japanese food made from wheat flour diluted with water or dashi, plus cabbage, chicken eggs, seafood or pork and fried on a flat pan called a teppan.
Kansai-style okonomiyaki with mayonnaise, katsuobushi and aonori
Okonomiyaki is a type of teppanyaki dish that can be eaten alone or as a side dish with white rice. Okonomiyaki is often eaten with a flat spoon called a kote (hera) which also doubles as a spoon when turning the okonomiyaki.
In Japanese, okonomi means "to like" (what one wants, what one wants) and yaki means "grilled" (the term "fried" is only used in Japan when food is fried in a lot of oil). As the name implies, the top layer (topping) of okonomiyaki can be adjusted according to the taste of the person who wants to eat it.
Based on the method of manufacture and the ingredients used, okonomiyaki is divided into two types:
Kansai-style Okonomiyaki
sliced cabbage mixed with dough like when making puyonghai
Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki (Hiroshimayaki)
Slices of cabbage are simply laid out on top of the batter spread over the frying pan like when making pancakes.
Ready-to-use okonomiyaki flour already contains baking powder, salt and dashi so that the resulting okonomiyaki is not hard. Grated tubers called yamaimo are often added to okonomiyaki batter to make okonomiyaki tastier.
