If you were asked to name a Japanese dish with a name off the top of your head, the name “Osaka Yaki” would probably spring to mind. But Osaka Yaki is less common than things like yakitori or Kanto, making it one of the must-try dishes for many people in Japan.
What kind of food is Osaka Yaki?
Here’s the real answer! (Recommended restaurants at the end of the article)
“Osaka Burn” ≠ “Osaka Burn”
Osaka, Japan’s “burn” (Osaka 焼 き / osakayaki)
The word Osaka Yaki has spread in Chinese and is believed to have originated in Taiwan. But in Japan, “Osaka” burn – that is, Japanese “Osaka 焼 き” (osakayaki), as shown in the above, refers to the food and are not the same in our impression. The Chinese term Osaka Yaki actually refers to the Kansai-style “jamiyaki” in Japan.
Mixed burn, Japanese called “good お み 焼 き” (okonomiyaki), also called okonomiyaki or casual to burn, is a kind of wheat flour and water mixing into the batter, add cabbage, eggs, soy sauce, etc., the baked food on the plate. The word “good お み” (okonomi) in Japanese is “habit”, the meaning of “personal preferences”; “焼 き” (yaki) is said to burn, roast. So in addition to the basic ingredients mentioned above, most people will add as many different ingredients as they like to jilyaki, such as pork, shrimp, squid and so on. However, this “preference” is greatly influenced by the region, so people in the same region develop a certain “convention” for jilyaki — adding similar ingredients and dressing it with similar flavors of sauces. Eventually, flavors are divided by regional names as they are today.
Among them, guan west wind mixed burn (masato west wind お み 焼 / kansaifu okonomiyaki) can be called is the most representative flavor mixed burning. After all, Kansai, with Osaka as the center, is considered the “hometown” of jaya.
What is jaya?
It is said that jinjiyaki is related to another Japanese dish called “script yaki”. Both from the Ann soil peach hill era famous Japanese tea house “thousand rikyu” favorite “bran の 焼 き” (funoyaki) cuisine. In this recipe, the batter is thinly spread, some mustard seeds are added, and then rolled with the sango pepper miso or granulated sugar. Used to be a little snack served at the Dharma meeting. Later, this cuisine gradually entered the Kanto, evolved into today’s text aki; At the same time, the food that was introduced to Kansai became today’s Kansai-style jamiyaki.
Jjamiyaki is usually cooked with batter mixed with chopped cabbage, eggs, dried shrimp, etc., and baked on an iron plate. However, there is also a theory that the origin of the jaya dish is not in Kansai, but in Tokyo. But no matter where it came from, the treatment eventually took root in Kansai and bred flavors that were unique to the place. Since the 1970 s, especially in the “Botejyu” (ぼ て ぢ ゅ う), such as “thousand room” the rise of the mixed burning shops, as well as the success of the Osaka world expo held, the flavor of the mixed burning has a place in the Japanese heart gradually.
Of course, it’s not just Kansai.
Hiroshima style jamiyaki
Around 1980, Hiroshima-style jaya became popular in Japan. Many people call it “Hiroshima burn” in Chinese.
Unlike Kansai-style jamiyaki, where everything is mixed together, the Hiroshima-style jamiyaki begins by spreading out the batter individually in a thin layer, adding vegetables and meat to the top, and then turning the bottom batter over with the various ingredients on top. The batter, which had been fried to a crisp at the bottom, became a huge lid on top of the food, and the heat from the iron plate lingered between the ingredients. This “steaming” method can be said to be one of the characteristics of the Hiroshima style of jizhiyaki, such a different preparation method also makes it very different from the Osaka style of Jizhiyaki taste. Hiroshima-style jizyaki is also featured with noodles and bean sprouts.
Hiroshima-style Jaya: Flip roasted
However, as mentioned above, the biggest feature of jaya is that people can add whatever they like to it, so in the same Hiroshima prefecture, there may be differences between different cities and districts.
In Futanaka, a city in the southeastern part of Hiroshima Prefecture, where the adults of many families spend the day working in factories, leaving no time to cook, the children often eat the jaya served in the shops. To make it affordable for children with their pocket money, cooks substitute cheaper minced or shredded pork for sliced pork. This would be known as the “mansion of” (fu 焼 き / fucyuyaki). Fuzhong-braised minced meat is usually juicier and more oily than pork slices, resulting in a crispier jizyaki.
Many chickens are raised in the city of Mihara, south of Hiroshima, which produces nearly half of the meat in the prefecture. Fresh giblets were plentiful and cheap, so locals added them to the jillie.
That’s probably the end of the story of the jambalaya. So some people may still wonder, the first mentioned Japanese “Osaka” yaki, is a kind of food?
What is Osaka Yaki?
While street stalls are rare in Japan, they can be found in parks and shrines for special events and celebrations. And assorted yaki, in all its forms, is bound to be there. Such as “wrapped in disposable chopsticks chopsticks volume” (zhu 巻 き / hashimaki), and the countless times in the above mentioned “Osaka 焼 き”.
The term Osaka Yaki is the same as Kanto boil. The latter is kansai to distinguish the kanto boil point just created, and “Osaka 焼 き” (osakayaki) is west Japan region to a mixed burning on the roadside stall selling the name. This kind of mixed burning in place with the center of Osaka kansai is known as “リ ン グ 焼 き” (ringuyaki, circle burn) or “a. a. 焼 き” (marumaruyaki, yuan yuan to burn). It is made by pouring batter into a wheel cake utensil and adding pork, cabbage, prawns, crushed tempura and shredded red ginger. It ends up merging the two semicircles into one like a wheel cake. Unlike the Kansai-style jizyaki you usually eat in the store, this one is smaller and more structured, making it easy to hold in your hand as a snack.
So the word “Osaka Yaki” in Chinese and Japanese does not refer to the same type of jamiyaki. While the Chinese name for all Kansai-style jamiyaki is Osaka, the Japanese term is found only in Kanto and refers to the torus yaki commonly found at roadside stalls. It is not known when it was mistakenly introduced to Taiwan, but it is known that the name “Kansai-style jilyaki” did not settle for very long. That’s because the name was basically Kansai-style jizhiyaki before it started to spread out of Hiroshima and throughout Japan.
Restaurant recommendation
A lot of a city can be seen in a small jaya dish.
Eating is always the best way to travel to experience the world!
◆ Taste is our own shop
The store is conveniently located near Namba Station in Osaka.
It’s not uncommon to open a store without a full house. The price is affordable, the taste is authentic, and the menu is wide to choose from.
Restaurant Address: 1-7-16 Nanba, Chuo-ku, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture
Business hours:
11:00-22:00 (Tuesday to Thursday, Sunday and Holidays)
11:00-22:30 (Friday, Saturday)
