Monday, October 6, 2014

Okonomiyaki

Only recently in life have I come to appreciate the taste of cabbage. As a kid, I'd eat cole slaw (drowning in mayo/requirement at bbqs) and, begrudgingly, sauerkraut once a year on New Year's Day (for good luck). Now--thanks to my husband, who is descended from Polish folk (if I hadn't mentioned it)--I will actually CHOOSE to eat cabbage. Pigs in blankets (Polish style, not little hot dogs wrapped up in dough), halushki (buttered noodles plus fiber!), and a fair amount of Japanese dishes. Other than in egg rolls, I didn't know Asian food was into cabbage. Here's a good, easy, delicious recipe to convert you to the Way of the Cabbage. Okonomiyaki is a sort of pancake/pizza...essentially, a flour/egg/water/cabbage pancake batter with whatever else you want mixed in, fried on a griddle, with meat, mayo, and bbq sauce on top. I know...I know...it sounds odd and not appealing at all. But try it...you won't be disappointed.

Yields 8
Base batter ingredients
-Green cabbage, finely sliced and broken apart--Tough to measure. Ends up being about 15 cups--or for me (and my small hands) 8 big handfuls. This can be about half of a small (2-3 lb) cabbage or a quarter of a large (3-4 lb) cabbage
-4 cups of flour
-2 cups of water
-1 T baking powder
-1 t salt
-6 eggs
 -Whatever else you want--onion, mushrooms, cut-up shrimp, pre-cooked chicken pieces, green onion, you name it.

Topping ingredients
-Mayo (can be kewpie or regular/American)
-Tonkatsu sauce for authenticity, or any kind of bbq or steak sauce
-Whatever other sauces you want to drizzle on top--I like eel sauce too, if I have it. If you like your food spicy-hot, add sriracha and red pepper flakes.
-Bonito flakes for authenticity--these are a sort of dried fish flake used to make fish stock. The cool thing about them is, after you sprinkle them on the hot and be-sauced okonomiyaki, one end of the flake sticks in the sauce and the other end waves (because of the convection). It's pretty cool.

Extra-special embedded meat ingredients
A special part of the okonomiyaki is that you usually dollop the batter over some bacon. However, you can obviously use any kind of meat you want. Spam is good...and recently, we tried adding thinly sliced pork chops with great success. You need to pre-cook this meat--everything should be just a few minutes shy of ready to eat.
-Pork loin (at least 2 lbs) sliced into 8 very thin pork chops. We're talkin' maybe a half-inch thick. OR 16 pieces of bacon. OR one 12-oz can of Spam, sliced into 8 thin slabs. OR...whatever else strikes you.

Cook!
1. Prepare any meat/veggies (other than the cabbage) that you want to mix into the batter. Embedded meat needs par-cooked (aka partially cooked, for you non-fancy-pants people). Any mix-in meat items will need completely pre-cooked and cut up.

2. Thinly slice (as thin as you can get it) the cabbage. I like using a serrated bread knife. Break apart the pieces so they'll mix easily into the batter. Put the cabbage in a large bowl.

3. Mix together the flour, water, eggs, salt, and baking powder. The mixture will be slightly lumpy, but that's OK. Mix this batter into the cabbage bowl, stirring well. It's advisable to do this in several stages.

4. If there are any other veggies or pre-cooked meat chunks you want *in* the okonomiyaki (as opposed to stuck on the top/bottom) mix them in now.

5. Grease/butter a griddle or pan. Pre-heat to medium-hot. Put 1/16 (or 1/8, if you're using pork chops--they're only on one side) of the special embedded meat in a small pile. Ladle about 2 cups of the batter over the meat. Press the another 1/16 of your choice of par-cooked meat into the top of the pancake. Repeat until your cooking area is full.

6. In about 4 minutes, check on the okonomiyaki. When you see small bubbles coming through the batter--just like happens when cooking pancakes--they are ready to flip. This could be anywhere between 4 and 8 minutes, depending on how hot your pan is. Don't flip until you can slide a spatula cleanly under the okonomiyaki without fighting it.

7. Cook on the second side for about 2-4 minutes. Again, don't flip to check unless you can get the spatula in without an argument.

8. If you're starving, prepare an oko from the first batch to eat. If not, keep going until you're out of batter. Store the finished oko either on a plate in the microwave or on a cookie sheet in a warm oven until you finish them all.

9. To decorate a cooked okonomiyaki for eating--spread or squirt a nice layer of mayo, bbq sauce, and whatever other sauces you wanted on top of the okonomiyaki. Sprinkle on a few tablespoons of bonito flakes and wave back to them as they beckon you to enjoy your first mouthful. Cut up into bite-sized pieces and enjoy!

10. I'd recommend refrigerating any leftovers without applying the toppings. To reheat, pop in the microwave or oven (both work well) and then top with abandon.

Itadakimasu!

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