Everyone likes food. You should be very suspicious of someone who says they don’t like to eat. I’m just sayin. A good meal is magic. And I know for a fact that I’m not the only blogger with an interest in cooking.
I have always wanted to have some sort of anime cookbook. In fact, if you guys know of an anime cookbook I could buy right now – let me know. I’ve looked into it and the closest I could find was the Manga Cookbook (which is a great start). I’ve always wanted a cookbook with recipes specifically from my favourite shows but that may be a touch too niche. Again, if any of you create one, you have a customer already lined up.
In the meantime, I propose trying to satiate my craving with this top 5 anime recipes. These are chosen from the food I would most like to taste so your mileage may vary.
Hiroshima okonomiyaki
Okonomiyaki is a staple food we often see in Japanese animation. It’s almost a communal experience as groups of friends can go together at a restaurant and cook it for themselves to their exact liking on tables that double as hotplates. This is great because I can then easily leave the meat out. It’s a fun twist on grabbing a bite with friends. I saw it most recently in Tsurune and I was really jealous at not having been invited.
The specific Hiroshima style is fired and uses the less doughy Osaka batter and adds fried egg as a topping and yakisoba noodles as a base. I say go big or go home! Is your mouth watering yet?
Onigiri
Onigiri is another classic and one of my all-time comfort foods. I have spent countless hours trying to shape those little rice balls into little pandas or kitties. I first came across the concept a long time ago, reading the Fruit Baskets manga (anyone else kinda psyched about the reboot?), and then was reminded of their magical powers in One Piece.
Onigiri are another highly adaptable food. At the base it’s really just a ball of sticky rice which you can flavor any way you want and even add a little center for extra kick. I often use avocado and Japanese mayo as a filling, but mushrooms are great too.
Quick tip, I have found it easiest to take a sheet of cling wrap and spoon the rice on there before shaping it. This is really the best way I found to ensure the rice keeps it shape and doesn’t stick to anything and come undone before I’m finished.
https://pickledplum.com/how-to-make-onigiri/
Chazuke
Those of you who have known my blog for a while may recall that I originally wanted to do a recipe in anime blog because of Bungo Stray Dogs. More precisely, because of the Chazuke so lovingly described in the first episodes. To this day, I’ve never eaten an “official” version cooked by someone ho knows what it should taste like.
Chazuke is essentially rice in a tea broth. Already let me just say yum right then and there. On that base, you can pretty much throw on any leftovers to create what amounts to a distinctly Japanese stew like concoction. I am very happy with the at home versions I’ve done but they do take a bit of cooking time. If anyone else has tried this recipe out, let me know. I’m curious how it turned out.
Omurice
Omurice… If it isn’t obvious by know, I really like rice and I really like eggs. I’m slowly working egg yolks out of my diet but I’m not there yet. Omurice is possibly the most recognizable Japanese anime dish thanks to all those adorable ketchup designs which are an absolute must if you do this at home.
I can’t really pin down a single anime for this one. I see it all the time and it makes me hungry every time. I remember playing through the No Thank You visual novel and actually interrupting naughty scenes just to go cook some up. Guys, if you ever want to cheer someone up after a hard day (especially in the winter as this is pretty hardy), cook them some omurice and don’t skimp on the ketchup hearts!
https://norecipes.com/omurice-recipe/
Takoyaki
Sadly I no longer eat Takoyaki but octopus was my all time favourite food for a long time. I miss it so much! We’ve all seen those little balls of friend dough and octopus meat. They are in just about every festival episode of every show you’ve ever seen. Whether it’s endless eight or nozaki-kun, haganai… just all of them really.
Sadly, Takoyaki is not that easy to make, unless you have the appropriate hardware and even then, it takes a bit of practice. However, Mako and I believe it’s well worth it!
Fluffy fluffy eggs
For reason I can only imagine are too genius for most of us to fully grasp, episode 6 of Touken Ranbu turned into a hilarious slapstick musical where the pretty pretty boys were attempting to cook a meal for “master”. This show is brilliant. There’s a reprise of the premise with a rivalry twist in episode 5 of the second season. It started out ambitiously with the swords attempting very extravagant dishes but after a series of failures, they settle on fluffy fluffy eggs.
Another simple egg dish and one I had never heard of before. Essentially, the idea is to whip egg whites up, fold in the yolks and then poach/steam them in a broth of your choice. The result is something like an extremely light and tender omelette or egg cloud, very delicately flavoured by the broth. I’ve done this using only egg whites and it becomes like a soft flavourful meringue.
This really is the perfect dish when you’re sick. Warm and incredibly easy to digest. Chock full of protein but very light. In fact, I’m going to go cook one up right now!
There you have it, my current top 5 (plus one) anime recipes. I admit, they lack a bit in diversity but what can I say. I likes what I likes. Do you have a favourite anime recipe? Let me know. I’d love to try it (or a vegetarian version of it).
I LOVE this blog! Thank you for inspiring me to eat more- hahah!
An incredible Youtube channel is “Jun’s cooking.” When I travel and feel homesick, or if I just need to calm down a bit, I play his videos on repeat.
They are so beautiful, the music is fantastic, and the cats delight me to no end. How can it be so much fun to watch someone cut something???
I know what you mean. I have a cooking show addiction and I can’t explain it
Here are two of my favorite links for watching Omurice <3 <3 <3
https://youtu.be/Ut-A0fih2io
Maangachi is just so sweet and adorable!
https://youtu.be/eeeTvatu6fk
Jun's Kitchen, of course.
Feel free to advertise and endorse the anime cookbook when it comes out! We will gladly follow!
Anime and manga depict food so gorgeously that even me, not a fan of food, find them attractive!
Sadly, being vegetation more than half of the food items are gone from my to try list.
Maki tasted really yum though and tea rice sounds brilliant…
Thanks to Silver spoon my preferred breakfast is now raw egg over warm rice. I admit, for us ‘mericans the idea of raw egg is a bit horrifying. Until you try it… OMG. I can only imagine how much better it is with eggs fresh from the hen’s ass. Being a stable hand I have worked places with chickens and got hooked on freshly laid eggs. My husband thought I was making it up until we had our own chickens for a couple of years. There really is a big difference. Sadly, not in a place to have chickies right now. Sigh.
If I have time, Omurice. Yum yum yum.
I want to try those pork cutlets on Yuri on Ice. And hot pot. Everyone eats hot pot and it looks awesome.
On the episode of Terrace House I watched last night they made something I did not recognize and they didn’t name that I strongly suspect was Takoyaki. It looked delicious. But squid is not on my menu. I wonder if you could replace it with some other fish or seafood meat?
If you ever find that anime cookbook – you better let me know!
And from one egg lover to another – you got to learn to make egg drop soup. Super easy. Super versatile. And my dinner more days than not.
I love hotpot. We have a pretty good hot pot restaurant close by and I drag unsuspecting friends all the time.
As for Takoyaki, I’m just going to say that octopus tastes very differently from squid if that’s the issue.
I am not much of a seafood person. Blame it up on growing up in the landlocked Midwest in a family that didn’t even eat fish to speak of. I’ve broadened my horizons, but there’s a certain ick factor…(blush)
That’s actually adorable.
Yeah, not a fan of squid either. Octopus doesn’t have that fishy strong taste though.
I think you could probably replace Takoyaki with some other alternative, but it won’t taste the same (tako is octopus).
It is just fried batter with little pieces of meat inside.
You could probably do a bacon and cheese version- very different, but still tasty.
Sure. I’m vegetarian personally so that’s not for me but they have veg versions of Takoyaki – they end up tasting like Bhaji which is not a bad thing
HOW do you make egg drop soup?
Every time I try adding an egg at the end of a soup, it ends up in clumps like cottage cheese- blech.
Egg drop soup is one of my favourites… what am I doing wrong?
The water has to be boiling, really boiling, and the egg really needs to go in first, otherwise it grabs everything else and blobs up. Also when you drop it have the egg in one hand and a fork in the other. Jab the yoke to break it the minute it hits the water and stir a bit so it makes itself into those long stringy instead of blobs. Hope that helps 😀 I love it.
You break it in the water not before. Interesting
Well, you crack the eggshell on the side of the pan, drop the egg in the water, stab the yoke and break it in the way, yeah. Or at least, I do. LOL.
I thought you might break the yolk in a bowl then pour it in…
You can, of course. Six of one, half dozen of the other 😀
I missed your reply!
Thank you so much for this, Foovay!
I agree! I love food but food shown in anime REALLY makes me crave food!
As a reply to Jalen “The Lone Wolf.”
Omurice is fantastic, and I try to make it as often as I can.
Anime is to thank for me loving the art of cooking.
it’s a great dish
Not quite a full fledged comment (since I was nodding in agreement the entire time) but I do believe Crunchyroll the blog, has a few anime recipes circulating about. Maybe that would be a place to look if you were looking for a specific cookbook?
They do. I have them bookmarked. They did feature Chazuke at some point
These anime recipes is making me hungry! Great post Irina! 😀
Thank you!
With my horrible food habits and preferences, I’d go to Japan and probably just eat hamburgers. >_< So my list would just be desserts like shortbread cookies and basic ice cream flavors!
I’m ok with that. Crepes with whipped cream?
As long as it isn’t too sweet, I’d probably eat those. But no cherries or anything!
How can anything be too sweet!? Sure textures can be weird but I honestly can’t see anything being too sweet unless it’s meant to be a dinner. Sweet dinners are a little weird but other than that, HOW!? Again, not prejudice, just difference I could never relate to.
Like the other day, I had a frozen slushie drink that was very sweet. I could only drink half of it.
Sweets in Japan are generally a lot less sweet than ones in, say, the states.
I tried crepes with creame, fruit and ice creame in Harajuku. Those things should be illegal! They had some that included cheesecake in it…..
Can’t they give you salmonella? I know it’s 10 in a million eggs, I still want to be cautious of that so, I won’t eat any.
As in eggs and this was a response to Wingking78….
Response to Wingking78 on the eggs…….
I swear it NEVER pops up until I’ve made a duplicate because I haven’t seen it!!! >: O
Only if you eat them raw usually
True, true. But he did SAY raw eggs…
Sorry, only just saw this reply. And no, I never said anything about eating raw eggs; I know some people are into that, but I’ve never actually eaten one. I did say “whole” eggs were good for you, but I meant eating both yolks and whites together instead of throwing out the yolk (which contains most of the nutrients). Soft-boiled eggs are actually my usual for breakfast.
You wrote: “I have always wanted to have some sort of anime cookbook”
The manga of Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan includes detailed recipes for each chapter, and Emiya’s techniques as portrayed in the anime version are pretty much on point.
And, of course, Vamp-Shogun has the recipes from Tentai Senshi Sunred in his own youtube channel.
Plus, your fellow blogger Emily at penguinsnacks.com has enough recipes for a book by now..
I have to admit I like neither eggs nor sea food, and anime meat always seems too fatty, so anime cooking rarely is that appealing. Some versions of curry, maybe?
Seaweed, on the other hand, seems mostly a joke or a minor ingredient in anime, but I’ve actually eaten a seaweed salad once, with a spicy/lemony dressing, which was really delicious.
HOW CAN ANYONE DISLIKE EGGS OR SEAFOOD!? THAT IS CRAZY TO ME!!! Not judging you, it’s just VERY odd to me!
I don’t know “how”, I only know “that”.
I love seaweed as well. It’s a bit rough on the hormones
Really?
yes
Huh, that’s something I never knew. I guess U DO learn something every day!
I ended up buying a mould to make onigiri because I just was terrible at shaping the rice. Since then though, it is something I make fairly regularly because it is just yum.
I have a few moulds as well but I find hand shaping weirdly relaxing. It’s like a meditative exercise
I agree! They’re so adorable! Sadly, I’ve never tried them (besides sticky rice and “spicy eggs” as Dad likes to call them. I don’t usually like tomato sauce or ketchup but it was good) but I’d love to eat some! I saw some in a Japanese show (I have to watch subtitles to know what they’re saying) called Mischievous Kiss and it looked SO adorable!!! I’d DIE for some!!!
http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/Reafdaw/yibis_One_Piece_387_720p1ABB5615mkv.jpg
Nothing beats a high-quality ramen for me. That okonomiyaki looks amazing, though.
BTW, unless there’s a very specific reason why you can’t have them (like allergies or something) there’s nothing wrong with eating whole eggs. A whole egg together is practically a perfect nutritional package, and by cutting out the yolks you’re cutting out half the protein, most of the vitamins and minerals, and basically all of the antioxidants and heart-healthy omega-3s in the egg. I’ve eaten 2-3 eggs a day almost every day since I was a toddler (these days I only buy pastured eggs for maximum nutritional value), and my blood test readings have always been great.
I get kidney stones from a lot of animal based proteins. As much as I love food…I hate kidney stones. The drinking isn’t great either. Sigh
Ow, sorry to hear that! That is a good reason to be careful. And no, alcohol definitely doesn’t help unless you’re careful to moderate. High salt/high sugar consumption and dehydration both create conditions favorable to producing stones, and heavy drinking (especially sugary mixed drinks) can contribute to both. But you probably already knew that. I learned some of these things the hard way from watching some of my friends and family over the years.
I HATE kidney-stones. You’re not alone, Irina! : l
First off, can I just say how aesthetically pleasing all those gifs and photos are? Omurice is definitely a dish that is simple yet delicious, therefore could help beginners to take a more interest in cooking from the help of anime. Great post !
Thank you. It makes me hungry every time I look at it
SAME HERE!!!!!!! I’M SO HUNGRY, MY STOMACH HURTS NOW AND I IMAGINE MYSELF DROOLING!!!!!!!!!! : (