← Nouns Cooking · Japanese

Ingredients

• 120 g Plain (all-purpose) flour
• ¼ tsp Baking powder
• ¼ tsp Salt
• 180 ml dashi, cooled
• 2 Eggs
• 300 g green cabbage, finely chopped
• 2 Spring onion, finely sliced
• 2 tbsp Pickled red ginger (beni shoga), chopped
• 120 g thinly sliced pork belly (or streaky bacon)
• 1 tbsp Vegetable oil
• 3 tbsp Okonomiyaki sauce
• 2 tbsp Japanese mayonnaise
• 1 tsp Aonori (green seaweed flakes)
• 5 g Bonito flakes

Method

1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and dashi into a smooth batter. Beat in the eggs, then fold in the cabbage, spring onion and pickled ginger. It should look like mostly cabbage held together by batter.
2. Heat half the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Spoon in half the mixture and shape it into a round about 2 cm thick, without pressing it down. Lay half the pork slices over the top.
3. Cover and cook for 5 min, until the bottom is golden. Flip it carefully with two spatulas (or slide it onto a plate and invert it back into the pan).
4. Cook pork side down, uncovered, for 5 min, until the pork is crisp and cooked through. Flip once more and cook for 2 min. A skewer in the centre should come out clean.
5. Brush with okonomiyaki sauce, zigzag with mayonnaise and sprinkle with aonori and bonito flakes. Keep it warm while you cook the second pancake, then serve in wedges.

Tips

• Grated nagaimo (Japanese mountain yam) in the batter gives the fluffiest texture, if you can find it.
• Japanese mayonnaise contains egg. Okonomiyaki sauce is easy to fake: 2 tbsp ketchup, 1 tbsp Worcestershire, 1 tsp soy and 1 tsp sugar.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Just One Cookbook RecipeTin Japan Japanese Cooking 101