Tired of your usual camping fare? Try this easy Japanese festival favorite

When you think of summer festivals in Japan, maybe the first thing you think of is the food. Rows upon rows of stalls selling cotton candy, chocolate-dipped bananas, buttered potatoes, okonomiyaki, yakisoba…thinking about it just makes us hungry. And if you’ve spent any festival season in southwestern Japan, you’ll probably know one staple festival food that everyone loves: hashimaki.

Hashimaki is basically like a thinner version of okonomiyaki–Japan’s savory “pancake”–that’s rolled up around a pair of chopsticks, like a skewer. And it turns out it’s super easy to make. So easy, in fact, that it also doubles as excellent camping food, especially because you can make individual servings! Who knew?

So today we’re going to show you how to make hashimaki. The recipe we are using is based on a video uploaded by camp cooking YouTuber Ken Outdoor Cooking, who is great at devising recipes that create individual servings. Let’s get cooking.

Ingredients

50 grams of flour

100 milliliters of water

1 egg

1 tablespoon of dashi powder

2 green onions

Red pickled ginger, to taste

1 tablespoon of dried shrimp

2 tablespoons of tenkasu (crunchy tempura flakes)

Cooking oil, as needed

Okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise, katsuobushi (bonito flakes), and seaweed flakes for topping

Directions

1. Thinly slice the green onions...

…and finely chop the red pickled ginger.

1. Pour the flour into a bowl

Then add water and egg.

Mix thoroughly until the batter is no longer lumpy.

1. Add the dashi powder, spring onion, ginger, dried shrimp, and tenkasu bits…

and give it a quick stir. This is the batter for our hashimaki.

1. Add oil to a skillet and heat over medium. Ideally, you’ll want to use a big flat griddle to have plenty of space to work with, but a wide frying pan will also work. When the oil and skillet are nice and hot, add the hashimaki batter in a thin, wide layer.

1. This is the tricky part. Once the batter begins to cook through slightly (it should be turning whiter in color) slide one end of the thin, crepe-like material between two disposable chopsticks.

It’s important not to break the chopsticks apart; leave them together so that they clamp onto the batter. We made the mistake of separating them the first time, and it was a lot harder.

Once you’ve got it clamped, use a spatula to roll the hashimaki around the chopsticks.

1. Before closing up your roll, baste a little bit of the original batter on the bottom layer so that both sides have something to stick to, and the roll won’t come apart when you pick it up.

Gently press it together, and let it fry for a bit, occasionally turning to ensure it cooks through.

1. Once it’s fully cooked and not going to fall apart, remove it to a plate, squeeze your desired amount of okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise on top…

Sprinkle on some bonito flakes and green seaweed flakes…

And voila! It’s done.

And now you have what’s basically an okonomiyaki skewer–all the good stuff of okonomiyaki, without the hard work to cut and eat it, and in a much shorter time!

According to Ken’s video, his hashimaki recipe has a much higher water content than your average okonomiyaki recipe, so it’s a bit moister than okonomiyaki. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t tasty! It definitely gave us festival vibes, and for those of our reporters who are from the Chugoku or Shikoku regions of southwestern Japan, the flavor reminded them of home.

These last two years have made it hard to enjoy festival food and to go camping, but the pandemic has also lead to the advantage of learning how to make those activities come to us. For camping, there’s always veranda camping, and as far as festival food goes, you can always try this recipe. Rolling the hashimaki is pretty tricky, but if you make it a competition to see who in your family can roll the most beautiful hashimaki, cooking it could become even more fun!

For dessert, make your own baby castella cakes (in funny shapes) to keep the festival vibe going. Don’t let the summer pass you by without honoring the season with your own private celebration!

Source: YouTube/兼業主夫ケンのキャンプ飯チャンネル / Ken Outdoor Cooking

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