Okonomiyaki (videos)

There are a bazillion and a half different recipes for okonomiyaki (which means, "whatever you like, grilled" in Japanese.) It's a cross between a savory pancake and a pizza. The fundamental ingredients are flour, water, egg and cabbage. The rest is "whatever you like" and it's really good! Here's a fun video showing how one woman makes a very basic okonomiyaki (she uses tempura batter instead of flour and she doesn't mix the egg into the batter.)



Every recipe that you find for okonomiyaki uses different amounts of flour and water. Some use dashi (fish stock) instead of water, or mix katsuobushi (fish flakes) into the water, first. Some use one egg. Some use two. Some recipes also add grated yamaimo (Japanese yam.) So you have to come up with your own preference. Ideally you're supposed to use soft flour, but I think you have to get that at a Japanese market, so I used American flour (which is a medium flour.) Notice in the video above, the woman chose to use water like I did, but sprinkled the katsuobushi on top of her okonomiyaki (that's another variation.) I used one whole egg (including the egg white) and instead of just cabbage, I used packaged coleslaw mix (two colors of cabbage plus carrot).

The toppings/mix-ins are what make okonomiyaki fun.

Ideas are:

Chicken
Roast pork or beef: thinly sliced or ground
Corn
Mushrooms
Leek or green onion
Prawn
Tuna
Squid*, Octopus*, other seafood
Bonito*
Katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes)*
Sakuraebi (dried shrimp)*
Benishoga (red ginger)*
Aonori (green seaweed)*

*available at Japanese markets

Once one side of the okonomiyaki is cooked, you sprinkle whatever you want (see above) into the still-wet batter, then flip it and finish cooking it. I made mine plain the first time. Other options are to sprinkle your extra ingredients onto the wet part, then layer even more batter on top, then flip it, as can be seen in the video below...



Once the okonomiyaki is finished - all golden brown and wonderful - then you have to garnish it. You definately want to drizzle on some mayonnaise and brown okonomiyaki sauce (available at Japanese markets.) If you can't find okonomiyaki sauce, you can use tonkatsu sauce, which is available at most mainstream grocery stores in the Asian foods section. I used tonkatsu, and it was delicious.

I really want to find a Japanese market, because I would like to try putting katsuobushi and aonori on top, as those seem to be favorities in a lot of recipes.

I think it would be really cool if anyone wants to try this and let me know how you made it and what worked well for you!

Today I spent $8.68 on groceries. Still $191.32 left to go on the new goal.

If you haven't gotten your fill of Japanese videos, you may get a kick out of this one, too (and more ideas for okonomiyaki)...



Enjoy!