QUICK & SIMPLE RECIPES – OKONOMIYAKI SAVORY JAPANESE PANCAKES

Hi there,

I have been wanting to cook Japanese savory pancakes called Okonomiyaki for the longest time. I use to cook it very often, and also during my school times, I use to cook this very often with my flatmates and always have little Okonomiyaki parties, it is great party food and is very easy to make. Quick & simple & yummy, who wouldn’t like that. 🙂

This is something that is good for either a main dish or a side dish, actually I will be posting another recipe which is using the same batter of this recipe but turned it into Korean pancakes instead.

This dish can be made into a vegetarian dish or with seafood & with various kinds of meat. I used below ingredients as I have it at home and wanted to clear my fridge, so you see, you can really mix it anything you like.

Ingredients are very simple as usual. Main ingredients actually involve only 1 main thing – cabbage and everything else is optional.

This time round, I wanted my savory pancakes to have more vegetables. So I used below ingredients instead (this can feed 4 people):

Wet ingredients

• Cabbage x 1/4 (you can use Beijing cabbage, or Australian cabbage)
• Bacon x 100g chopped into fine pieces
• Chives x 4 stalks chopped into fine pieces
• Corn kernels x 1/4 cup or half a carton
• Carrots x 1 finely sliced
• Fresh milk x 1 small carton

Dry Ingredients

Plain Flour x 1 cup

Self Raising Flour x 1 cup (I used self raising flour because it helps to make the pancakes fluffier)

Eggs x 2

Condiments : Oyster sauce, soya sauce, japanese cooking wine or anything you want, avoid flavors that is tart

Directions :

You can follow either method below, actually I find the latter is more efficient as the ingredients can bind better.

Mix milk and flour together to make a batter then mix the ingredients into it  OR

Mix the flour into the ingredients then, pour in milk & mix the ingredients

I usually mix the flour first, but I wanted to find out if mixing the batter first and have the ingredients mixed inside is easier, it seems to make sense, you know the old saying, always put wet ingredients into dry ones and never the other way.

Well this recipe didn’t work that way. I find more clumps so I would recommend you to mix the flour with the ingredients first and slowly pour in the milk to create a batter for the Okonomiyaki.

1.  So first, mixed all the vegetables and flour, make sure the vegetables are all coated with the flour, before you pour the milk in it.

2.  Fry some bacon bits and mix into the batter. (You can opt not to fry the bacon bits too, but for me, I find it taste better, as the bacon infused oil gives a smoky flavor to the batter.)

3.  Next crack couple of eggs into the batter, mix well.

4.  Then you just only need to season the batter, actually it was my flatmates that taught me to use Oyster sauce to season the batter, and it did turn out very well! I also use about 1 tablespoon of soya sauce and japanese cooking wine mirin. I usually will add in sesame oil and also sesame seeds too.

Pour all the sauces into the batter and mix well

5.  Use a non stick fry pan to cook the batter. Turn on high heat, drizzle some oil and scoop in a big soup spoon of batter onto the pan.

Pan fry for about 1 min on one side, and wait till there is bubbles forming on the surface of the batter, that’s when you can flip the okonomiyaki over. 

You can fry the first side longer if you want to crisp it further.

As for condiments you use on okonomiyaki, it is the same like takoyaki, those octopus balls you get from shopping malls.

You just need Japanese mayo and also Okonomiyaki sauce which is the sweet version of Tonkatsu deep fried pork cutlet sauce. For me, as I do not cook as often, I just use Tonkatsu sauce instead.

From below, you can see how I decorate the Okonomiyaki, just drizzle some okonomiyaki sauce, use the back of the spoon to spread it over the japanese pancakes.

Then use the Japanese mayo to drizzle your preferred design on the pancakes. As I have some dried seaweed flakes in my fridge, I also sprinkle it on top.

Sprinkle some katsuo bushi which is dried bonito flakes if you have it or add in Japanese red ginger, those sliced pink ginger that you have at Yoshinoya with the beef rice bowl. I like to have these 2 things in my pancakes, but if you are lazy to go all the way to get these at a japanese supermarket, then the above will be just sufficient.

Try to add some seafood. I tried once with just vegetables & cheese, and it taste magnificent! The cheese actually added extra crisp to the pancakes.

As for the protein part of the okonomiyaki, instead of bacon, try minced meat, I added mince pork before but you will need to fry it before you add into the batter. It gives the pancakes more bite.

To make it Korean style, add kimchi to the batter too. So this recipe is really versatile and can definitely helpful when you need to clear off some of the ingredients left in your fridge. 🙂

Happy Cooking!

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Cheers,

Dawn