(speaking in foreign language)
- [Alvin] Hello there.
Welcome back to another episode of Anime with Alvin.
This time, we're gonna be tackling
the giant okonomiyaki from One Piece,
a savory pancake like dish
that is filled to the brim with lots of goodies inside
and is one of the most fun Japanese foods to make.
One of its signature features is crisscross of Kewpie mayo
and sweet tangy okonomiyaki sauce on top.
The version in the show seems to take on inspiration
from modanyaki or modern okonomiyaki which involves noodles.
Let's get started.
For the okonomiyaki batter,
we're gonna start by mixing two and two thirds cup of water
with four teaspoons of mirin
along with three and one quarter cups of cake flour.
Whisk well to combine
and this gets covered and chilled just to set to the side
so that the gluten can relax
and the batter can just become more homogenous.
We're also gonna take one and a half cup
of katsuobushi or dried bonito flakes
and grind them up using a mortar and pestle
until they become a fine powder.
In the show, Sanji specifies using a lemon mayo
so we're gonna take the juice and zest of two lemons
and combine them with one entire bottle of Kewpie mayo.
Give that a stir and funnel that back into a squeeze bottle.
This is important for the end.
Now for the vegetables.
I'm slicing up one onion, four green onions or scallions
and half the head of one cabbage.
Cabbage is one of the most important parts of okonomiyaki
for texture, flavor
and often makes up the majority of the final dish.
Now, to the stove.
In the stove, we're gonna add two cups of water
and one packet of instant yakisoba noodles.
We found this in a yakisoba kit from a local grocery store
because it is difficult to just make noodles on your own
and this kit will do fine.
Give that a cook for about one minute
or as the package instructs and take that out
making sure to drain any excess water.
I have here just a few blanched octopus tentacles
that we separated and blanched for about 20 minutes
in just some water with a little bit of salt.
And in a large wok, I'm adding in three tablespoons of oil,
the onions and about half of the cabbage
that we chopped earlier.
Give that a stir fry with a couple pinches of salt
and in goes the octopus to cook as well.
Once everybody's getting a little bit of color,
toss in the noodles
and another element specified visually in the show
also goes in.
This is just some kombu that has been pre-soaked in water
for 10 minutes offscreen.
In goes roughly three tablespoons of that.
And now for the fun part, yakisoba sauce,
a sweet and tangy sauce
that you can also find at your local Japanese grocery store.
Kind of eyeballing it
and giving a heavy glug here and there,
adding a touch bit more oil and giving that a nice stir.
Once the noodles
and everything is starting to get coated real nicely,
in goes one green scallion's worth
and a tablespoon of beni shoga or red pickled ginger.
This is something that is a little difficult to make
so we got this condiment
at the local Japanese grocery store.
A little extra sauce just for fun.
Give that a toss and we are done
with the noodle portion of our dish.
In the show, Sanji's cooking opponent
clearly makes an entire yakisoba dish which then he steals
completely to use as the base of his own dish.
Quite genius.
Onto Sanji's portion of the battle.
I'm lubricating a cast iron skillet
with just a little bit of oil and a paper towel
and ladling in approximately one third cup
of this okonomiyaki batter that was rested from before.
Give that a spread
until it basically looks like a large crepe
and now we start to build.
In first goes a sprinkle of our crushed bonito powder
that we made earlier.
A couple of chunks of blanched sliced octopus bits
that just dance around the edges of the pancake
and tearing a little bit of kombu to match the show.
On goes a heavy bed of our shredded lettuce
that we hand cut earlier
and then an ingredient known as tenkasu or tempura bits.
I'm pretty sure this is just fried tempura batter.
After a sprinkle of green onions,
in goes a light scattering of just beans sprouts
and this special ingredient,
an ingredient that lends the okonomiyaki
a nice savoriness according to online research that we did.
The next part is my favorite,
a couple of slices of thinly sliced pork belly,
around three to four for this one
that just go right over the top
and to seal this together,
just a couple of drips and streaks of that batter.
We don't wanna add too much here
but the goal is that once we hopefully flip it,
that batter will harden
and will seal this whole thing together.
We let this cook for roughly five minutes on low heat
and then we attempt to loosen the edges and flip it.
This is a little tricky so I'm using a pizza peel to flip
and slam it back down to where it came from.
This one seems to be a little small.
Sanji in the show seems to have taken up
the whole entire screen with the size of his creation
so we will set this to the side as a snack
and we will try again.
Let's just, let's put that over there.
And this time, let's go with one half cup
of okonomiyaki batter.
That way we can cover more surface area on the bottom
and we repeat, bonito powder,
kombu to fill in a couple of gaps.
Kinda like making a pizza.
Some chopped up octopus, shredded cabbage
mounding it in an even larger pile as that is what I recall
from having had this in Japan a few times.
Layering with tenkasu, scallions, bean sprouts,
the tororo kombu and six slices of thinly sliced pork belly.
Now is not the time to cheap out.
Now is the time to go all in.
And again, sealing the top with a little bit of batter
just to cover the crevices
and hopefully stick together the whole entire thing
when flipped.
This is looking at least twice the size of my previous one
so I'm feeling pretty good about this.
Make sure to give the sides a release
and not burn the edges of your pancake
and let's slide this back onto the pizza peel
to serve as our tool for the day.
I'm really glad we had this thing.
One, two, three and boom.
That's not bad.
Not bad at all.
We let the other side cook for roughly five to 10 minutes
because the pork belly does need to cook all the way through
and the cabbage does need some heat to be able to penetrate
and wilt that down just a little bit.
Once the pork is starting to crisp up
and everything looks nice,
we slide this back onto our pizza peel
and here, you can clearly see
how sad the other one is looking.
It's sitting there like an old piece of bread
because nobody wanted it.
Now to assemble the full dish.
Sanji, just like in the show,
needs to steal his opponent's dish
so we are stealing the yakisoba that we made earlier,
spreading it onto the cast iron and searing that
just for a little bit of of heat and structure
before attempting to slide the okonomiyaki back on top.
After letting this set, settle and cook
for roughly another three minutes on low heat,
we remove the whole thing once again
with a little bit of difficulty
as the noodles are not one solid mass yet
but we have still yet to fail
and now on the bottom, we crack in about five eggs.
The eggs served as a base for this pancake
but also as an adhesive to the loose noodle part.
Once we slide that back on, good job, Alvin,
we let the egg cook and bind this through
and then again, we slide this back off onto the pizza peel.
With the help of Rachel,
we were able to accomplish this rather difficult task
and we have probably slid this thing on and off
about 10 times at this point.
And now the most difficult part.
We need to flip this entire thing on its head.
Here you can see that we have clearly devised
a foolproof method to make this work.
Instead of flipping this onto the pan,
why not flip the pan onto the peel?
After a little bit of engineering, physics and brute force
along with a touch of luck,
we have now successfully flipped the okonomiyaki
back onto its backside.
And here, you can see its exposed egg belly
in all of its glory.
Now, there's only one thing left to do, sauce.
Take a heavy amount of the okonomiyaki sauce
and brush that on with a paintbrush that is edible.
This is probably my favorite part.
Make sure to be a little bit generous
'cause this stuff is what you're here for.
And then with our squeeze bottle full of lemon Kewpie,
the nice zigzag pattern of mayo right on top.
And finally, to finish, a sprinkling of aonori
or I think that translates to green seaweed.
This is a finely ground green color seaweed
that serves as very pretty garnish on top.
Look at that.
That looks pretty good to me if I do say so myself.
I also like letting the sauces caramelize
and sizzle a bit on the bottom.
I think that adds extra flavor
and makes sure that this entire thing
is actually sealed together.
I went back and rewatched the episode
and apparently, he actually does this in a zigzag line
so we're gonna add a little bit more Kewpie mayo
in the other direction to create a crosshatch pattern
and to finish, a handful of katsuobushi on top.
One of the fun parts about eating okonomiyaki
is watching those bonito flakes dance
in the wind currents of the heat coming off of the thing.
But I present to you our version of the giant okonomiyaki
or modanyaki from One Piece Sanji style.
I've been able to have okonomiyaki
a few times in my life luckily
and I'm curious to how this compares.
So let's cut this into quarters,
get a nice little cross section going
and I gotta say it is pretty good.
It is literally like eating a stir fry noodle dish
with the savory, sweet, salty, tangy pancake
that has egg, pork, cabbage.
It's just a bunch of stuff and I think that's the best part.
It doesn't really taste like one thing in specific
but you can't really nail everything that went in there
and in the end, you get so confused
you just can't do anything besides sit back and enjoy more
so that is exactly what me
and the rest of the crew in the studio are going to do.
(calm music)