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Japan, is well known for its unique flavours and traditional dishes because of this our teacher decided to cook for us, the dish called, ‘おこのみやき’ (okonomiyaki) which is a ‘Japanese Pancake’. The traditional okonomiyaki’ consists of many ingredients such as; cabbage, Japanese flour, fish stock, prawns, octopus, seaweed and seasonings. However this was changed to better suit the Australian taste.
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The meaning behind okonomiyaki is, that it derived from the word ‘okonomi’ which means ‘what you want’ whilst, ‘yaki’ means grilled, thus okomiyaki means ‘grilled as you like it’.
Okonomiyaki in Japan, is a popular dish that is served as a snack or a side dish at restaurants, in fact over 30,000 restaurants in Japan serve this dish. There are also many food stalls that serve the Japanese Pancake and it’s an all time favourite street vendor. There are different variations to this dish, depending on which part of Japan you are in. Okonomiyaki is indeed an interesting and delicious dish!
The Food Technology students along with Miss Evans were able to learn the process of making Okonomiyaki from Miss Mizukami. During the cooking lesson Miss Mizukami explained the ingredients and how they are used in the recipe.
The process of making the Okonomiyaki was simple, firstly we placed the already prepared batter made by Miss Mizukami onto the barbeque then waited until the one side was cooked then flipped it to cook the other side. Once the Okonomiyaki’s were all cooked we then decorated the pancakes with Japanese style BBQ sauce and mayonnaise with some seasoning, which made the Okonomiyaki taste more delicious. Once served all the students would then say “Itadakimasu” (said before eating meal in Japan).
Many other teachers were also interested and were able to have a taste of the Okonomiyaki; just like the students everyone enjoyed the food and thought it was great. By the end of this many students were full and said that they enjoyed this culture lesson and even asked Miss Mizukami for the recipe.