Okonomiyaki

And now for something completely different: Okonomiyaki!



Okonomiyaki is a traditional Japanese dish sometimes, due to lack of a more accurate description, called Japanese pizza. It's a surprisingly easy dish to make, and you can put pretty much whatever you want in there.

This is how I make okonomiyaki.

Ingredients (enough for 4-5 people):
Base
-> 230g flour - I use ca 180g potato flour and 50g wholemeal flour, but you could just add regular flour if you want. The potato flour helps make it sticky so you might want to add a bit of potato flour even if you mostly use regular flour.
-> 300ml water - you can also use chicken or fish stock if you want.
-> 3 eggs
-> ½ cabbage
-> 200g shrimps or prawns - I use garlic and parsley marinated prawns.
-> 1/3 leek
-> Anything else you want to add. If you don't like shripms you can use pork instead, or if you like both, why not have both? You can add mushrooms or any type of vegetables, and you are supposed to add bacon on top as well, but I forgot to buy it, so we'll have to do without.

Condiments/toppings - these go on top of the "base" after it's been cooked.
-> Kewpie mayo
-> Okonomiyaki brown sauce
-> Bonito flakes (fish flakes) - However, I forgot to buy this as well, so for this recipe I've used fish rousong, which unfortunately didn't work quite as well. It worked, but I recommend buying bonito flakes.
-> Aonori (seaweed flakes)

From left to right: kewpie mayo, okonomiyaki sauce, aonori, sakura denbu (fish rousong). All of these can be bought at Japan Centre in London, who also deliver.


Add the flour and the water in a bowl and mix well. Mix in the eggs. Then add the vegetables and prawns (and anything else you might want to add) and mix gently.

Divide up the mix into 2 or 3 batches. Heat up a little oil in a pan. When the pan is heated up, pour one batch into the pan and flatten it out until it is round and even. If you want to use bacon, put the bacon strips on top of the mixture. Cook it on medium heat for 5 minutes, then flip it and cook it on the other side for 5 minutes. Then put it on a big plate and add the toppings. Do this for all batches. Now it's ready to be shared and eaten.

Best enjoyed together with miso soup and cold mugen (barley) tea.


Seriously good stuff.

~Soma