Angel hair pasta pancake in "okonomiyaki" style エンジェルヘアパスタと桜えびのお好み焼き風

"Okonomiyaki" お好み焼き is a very popular Japanese pancake in which you can put "anything you like on top" (this roughly translates to "okonomi"). We are not particularly fond of okonomiyaki. Last time we tried this dish was in Himeji 姫路. It was in the "Hiroshima" style, and we decided this was not our favorite. There were so many items piled up on the pancake--toppings and sauces, the flavors became "muddy" and we could not taste anything distinctive. But, I occasionally make something like "okonomiyaki" using leftovers. In this version, you can taste all the different flavors.

We had left over Angel hair pasta. So I made this as a starter. There are no rules on how to make this type of dish. I had about 1/2 cup (guesstimate) of cooked Angel hair pasta. To the pasta, I added grated Parmigiano Reggiano (about 4 tbs or more if you like), salt and pepper to taste and one egg. I mixed well. In a small frying pan on low flame, I added olive oil (1tbs), and spread the mixture (see the image below). After 4-5 minutes when the bottom is cooked (the surface is still wet), I sprinkled on the dried small shrimp called "sakura ebi" 桜えび but again anything goes. You could add anything you like or you do not have to put anything on at all. I then flip it so that the side with shrimp will cook (another 4 minutes).

I flipped it one more time to make sure the bottom and edge were crispy. I used a Pizza cutter to cut the pancake in quarters and garnished it with "aonori" 青のり and ketchup. This is a very interesting fusion dish but we like this over the more traditional "okonomiyaki". We had this with a nice Spanish red, Portal del Montsant Santbru 2007. We posted our tasting of 2005 vintage in the past. The 07 vintage appears to be very similar in appearance and taste. We shared one pancake since this was a starter.