Teppan-Style Tabletop Cooking
Enjoyable tabletop “hot plate” cooking at home
Outside Japan, teppanyaki cuisine may bring to mind specialty restaurants where steaks and vegetables are prepared on a griddle right in front of diners. (Teppanyaki literally means “grilled on an iron plate.”) But in Japan’s culinary culture, many dishes besides meat are made on a teppan flat iron griddle. Some popular examples include yakisoba stir-fried noodles and okonomiyaki Japanese-style pancakes, all traditionally associated as being cooked and sold at festival stalls or in restaurants.
As more Japanese consumers look for variety in home-cooked meals, electric teppan-style “hot plate” appliances have become a useful and versatile accessory in many homes, making teppanyaki dishes an easy, delicious option. Japanese electric hot plates function as teppan griddles, but are made of lighter materials with non-stick coatings for easy handling. They can be placed directly on the table and have separate plate attachments for preparing a variety of foods.
The ease and fun of cooking at the table, along with the appeal of recreating festival foods, caught on in Japanese households when electric hot plates were first introduced here in the early 1960s. As appliance technology advanced, cooking plates became removable from the heating element for easy cleaning; in the 1990s, induction heating (IH) hot plates provided more precise temperature control. These days, various hot plate designs are available to support the preparation of specific dishes: these include the standard flat plates for teppanyaki and yakiniku Japanese barbeque; pot-shaped plates for cooking sukiyaki, nabe hot pot or even frying tempura; and takoyaki plates with small semi-spherical molds.
The pleasure of hot plate cooking lies in its casual tabletop entertainment value where everyone can cook and eat as they please—and the menu is growing. Alongside classic dishes like yakiniku and takoyaki, electric hot plates are used for making gyoza, hamburgers, crepes and stir-fries. And as hot plate cooking thrives, enthusiastic home cooks are sharing innovative Japanese menus on social media, inspired by global favorites like pizza, paella and ajillo—and so the possibilities beyond traditional teppanyaki cuisine are limitless.
