Japanese Pizza

Who knew and where have I been hiding that I didn't discover this sooner? I was at a friend's house the other night for a rousing game of LOGO (The ladies lost to the men. Of course more than half of the questions were about cars, beers and tires/tyres, but there will be a rematch, and we mean to win. I digress.) when she passed around little wedges of comfort. Japanese comfort, apparently.

Close up of a "slice" of Japanese Pizza, a.k.a. Okonomiyaki

Japanese pizza. She'd brought it in from a local sushi place.

I went to that sushi bar yesterday and ordered one to share with a couple of friends--our job? To analyze and dissect and then to replicate.

It's a base of eggy-floury crepe/pancake that has shreds of onion, carrot and red bell pepper in it. That crepe gets fried to a dark golden brown in a generous amount of oil. The finished crepe is plated on top of hoisin sauce then topped with sliced green onions, panko bread crumbs (maybe??), a drizzle of sesame oil and an artful splashing of mayo.

Of course I got home and googled Japanese pizza--101 Cookbooks, one of the best (and earliest!) cooking blogs around, has a great write up. Heidi discovered it, too--it's got a real name: okonomiyaki. Her recipe uses shredded cabbage and I'm thinking maybe that was in mine, too...it had a texture I couldn't place, and that might be what it was...(and in one of those weird turns of events, my Chowhound feed showed up in the in box yesterday with...you guessed it, an article on the superior okonomiyaki at Doya Doya in Torrance, in LA.

I recommend finding one to eat yourself, then reading the recipes around the internet, then trying to recreate the flavors you love. (I MUST buy something I saw in the recipes, "kewpie mayonnaise" or "kewpie doll mayonnaise"--if for no other reason than that NAME.) When I recreate, I'll race back here with my own results.