Griddle & dumplings ── Konamono (flour-based griddle dishes)
Mihara-yaki
Mihara-yaki — Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki with chicken giblets
Mihara, Hiroshima's okonomiyaki adds chicken giblets to the fillings, said to reflect a town where poultry farming once thrived, giving the usual noodle-and-cabbage stack a chewy offal layer too.
- Origin: Hiroshima Mihara
- About 630 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Mihara-yaki adds chewy chicken giblets to the standard layers of cabbage, pork, and noodles. Gizzard and heart are often chopped in, and biting through it layers the giblets' springy bite and savor over the cabbage's sweetness and the noodles' chew. Little pockets of extra chew turn up throughout, so one piece can swing between soft and firm from bite to bite.
How it's made
Layering batter, cabbage, pork, and noodles and steaming it matches Hiroshima city's method, but Mihara-yaki scatters chopped chicken giblets over the noodles before it's cooked through. The giblets are often trimmed beforehand to cut any gamey smell. Egg and sauce finish it the same way as standard Hiroshima okonomiyaki. How much giblet goes in, and which cuts, is said to vary from shop to shop.
Why it took this shape
Mihara is said to have once been a center of poultry farming, and that is thought to explain why chicken giblets were within easy reach as a filling. Within Hiroshima's shared layered format, the local poultry industry is said to show up directly in the choice of filling — a different set of local conditions from the inland rice country or the port towns. That poultry tradition is said to still live on at Mihara's tables, with each shop handling the giblets its own way.
Before you go
- Tanabata and festival food stallsA guide to the somen said to be eaten on Tanabata, and to festival-stall staples like yakisoba, takoyaki, candy apples, and shaved ice.
- At yakiniku, shabu-shabu, and hot potGrilling your own meat at yakiniku, swishing thin slices at shabu-shabu, and sharing from the pot — the customs behind each.
- At yatai food stalls and while eating on the streetPaying and ordering at a yatai food stall, handling your trash, the etiquette of eating as you walk, and how to step into a Hakata yatai.
Dishes in the same style
- AkashiyakiOctopus folded into a batter of wheat flour, jin-ko starch, egg, and dashi, cooked and dipped in a warm broth — Akashi's own take on the round batter-and-octopus dish, distinguished from takoyaki by that broth in place of sauce.
- Fuchu-yakiA Fuchu, Hiroshima take on okonomiyaki that swaps sliced pork belly for ground beef or pork worked right into the batter, so the meat's flavor is said to come through evenly in every bite.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Hiroshima
- Anago MeshiConger eel, grilled kabayaki-style, is sliced and layered over rice cooked in dashi—a dish from Miyajima. It uses "Seto anago," prized for the fat that fast currents help build into the fish, and is said to have begun in 1901 as a bento sold at Miyajimaguchi station.
- AzumaSardine-like mamakari, cured in vinegar, is pressed onto seasoned okara instead of vinegared rice in this coastal sushi. It is said to have begun as a way to stretch scarce rice by substituting the cheap, plentiful soy pulp, and was served at festivals and New Year's gatherings.
- Bishu NabeChicken, gizzard, and pork are simmered with nothing more than salt, pepper, and sake in this hot pot from Saijo, one of Japan's noted brewing towns. It is said to have begun as a simple meal cooked by sake brewers between batches, seasoned lightly so as not to dull their palate for tasting.
- EbamakiRice is tossed with Hiroshima-na pickle, bonito flakes, and sesame, then rolled in toasted nori—a roll from Hiroshima's Eba district, long known for seaweed cultivation. The ends are sometimes tucked shut so it can be eaten one-handed while rowing, a food born for nori fishermen working on the water.
- Fuchu-yakiA Fuchu, Hiroshima take on okonomiyaki that swaps sliced pork belly for ground beef or pork worked right into the batter, so the meat's flavor is said to come through evenly in every bite.
- GansuFish paste coated in panko and fried, a Kure, Hiroshima specialty. Said to have been devised in the postwar 1940s as a way to use leftover fish paste from kamaboko production, an unusual pairing of fried fish cake and cutlet-style crumb.