Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) recipe

I’m loving okonomiyaki at the moment. It’s a wonderful dish that also gets you a healthy dose of vegetables. OK, It *can* be healthy. Most okonomiyaki I’ve seen are full of meat and fish toppings and coated in mayo!

So what is it exatcly? Okonomiyaki is like an omelette or a pizza. The compound for okonomiyaki お好み焼き has the kanji for suki 好き and the kanji for yaki 焼き; basically, what you like fried / griddled / toasted / bbq’d, etc. It’s a bit of a vague term, but it’s used to describe a type of omelette made from flour and water (and sometimes egg) that contains cabbage as a base, then has toppings or ingredients of your choice. It’s not really as varied as pizza in terms of toppings, but you get the drift.

Okonomiyaki comes from the Kansai area of Japan, mainly in Osaka. Osaka is famous for a lot of Japan’s “take-out” style cuisine, such as okonomiyaki, takoyaki, ramen. Much like yakiniku, okonomiyaki is a dish you get involved with. Most restaurants have tables with a teppan cooking area. You get given the ingredients prepared, and you mix it and cook it yourself. Ok, there’s not much cooking skill needed, all you need top do is make sure it doesn’t burn. But it adds to the experience.

There are two famous types of okonomiyaki: Osaka okonomiyaki and Hiroshima okonomiyaki.

[Photo by Elijah in Osaka]

Osaka-yaki is the traditional kind; the ingredients and toppings are mixed together and it makes a much thinner omelette, topped off with an okonomiyaki sauce, mayo and sometimes bonito flakes.

 

[Photo by potatomato.com]

Hiroshima-yaki on the otherhand, tend to layer the ingredients. There’s a lot more cabbage in the batter, and they also add fried egg, and yakisoba. They are usually topped off with an okonomiyaki sauce and some extra toppings. Hiroshima-yaki tend to be much taller than Osaka-yaki.

My favourite way is to make it Osaka style. I actually like the Hiroshima style more, but there’s so much there that a lot gets wasted, I just can’t eat it! Osaka style are also easier to make at home, as well as being quicker to prepare.

Traditional ingredients include using dashi stock, bonito flakes, an okonomiyaki sauce (similar to the tonkatsu / bulldog sauces) Japanese mayonaise and grated yam. However, much to my dissapointment, Japanese cooking isn’t as widespread over here in the UK, so i’m gonna talk you through my recipe which you can find ingredients for in any supermarket.

Ok, so the ingredients you will need are:

For the batter:

- Cabbage (pre-shredded is good. I use a mix that has leek in it as well. I love leek!)
- 1 egg
- 1 cup of plain white flour
- 1/2 cup water
- 3 slices of bacon, or a meat/fish equivalent
- A pinch of salt
- (optional) leek

For the sauce:

- Tomato Ketchup
- Worcester sauce
- Mayonaise

You’ll need a frying pan and some cooking oil (I use extra virgin olive oil). A grill is also useful as well.

I tend to wing my batter. It should be a little thin, but if you are a bit worried the first few times, add a little more flour. Adding another egg may help it to form as well.

1. Shred the cabbage (and leek if you have it) into thin strips. You’re looking at getting them about 2 inches by 1cm. Put this in a measuring jug or bowl or something.

2. Add to it the egg, the flour, the water and the salt. Mix this all together with a spoon until you have a batter. Don’t worry about lumps, just try your best to beat them out. Egg should be kind of whisked.

3. Put a teaspoon of oil into a hot frying pan, and add the rashers of bacon. Cook them until they are browning, then take them out and cut them into chunks. Put them back in the pan and spread them around the pan evenly.

4. There should still be some oil in the pan you used to fry the bacon. Add a little more if necessary, then add the batter over the top of the bacon.

5. Wait for the batter to cook a little bit, make sure your grill is set to high. When the edges start to solidify, use a spatula to lift up the edges a little. When the main part starts to solidify, get the spatula underneath as much as you can without breaking the batter. If you can get it loose do so, or try to give the pan a little shake.

6. Stick the pan under the grill. Cook the top until it starts to brown. The whole okonomiyaki should be solid now, so if you want, take it out of the grill and back onto the hob. Then flip it over. This makes it easier to apply the sauce, because you now have a surface formed in the shape of the frying pan.

7. Mix up the sauce. You need equal parts of the tomato ketchup and Worcester sauce. I actually use a little more TK though. Spoon the sauce over the okonomiyaki, then do the same with the mayo.

Serve up and enjoy. I find it nice to have with milk. This is definately a dish you can experiment with. Try adding a stock instead of water. Maybe add more vegetables like courgette or red onion, or add yakisoba and an egg on top. As the name implies, It’s up to you!

[photos by myself, greg.abstrakt.ch, Elijah in Osaka and potatomato.com - I'll stop using other people's photographs when I get to Japan ( T . T ). Thank you everyone! Gimme an e-mail if you want me to take anything down.]