This recipe makes okonomiyaki for one person.... one very greedy person. Start with 150g of plain flour.
Add 1 egg and 105ml of water or stock - I use half a stock cube for this; first 50ml of water is hot to disolve the cube and the rest cold.
Mix it all up so it is reasonably smooth. If you want to add any seasoning you can do this now - I have put in some black pepper occasionally.
Every okonomiyaki has cabbage in it. Cut two or three leaves into thin strips after removing the tough stem bit from the middle of each leaf.
Make the strips thin - thinner than this would probably be better, but I'm too lazy. Mix this in with the batter you made previously and put it all to one side.
Now you think about the other ingredients. Here you see some mushrooms, spring onions and some bacon. Chop them up nice and small.
Fry off anything you think might not cook properly in the middle of the okonomiyaki - again, I'm pretty lazy so just added pretty much everything.
Sometimes I have cheese in the middle of the okonomiyaki - you don't have to grate it; smallish chunks will do nicely.
Some salmon (or other fish, I guess) goes quite well too.
Oooh. My ingredients are ready! Time to take them off the heat. Keep a couple of stips of bacon to the side to put right on top. The rest goes into the batter/cabbage mixture.
Mix it all up again. While your're doing this, make sure that frying pan is on a medium heat - if not you're okonomiyaki will burn.
If you're trying to put something in as filling (salmon and cheese as per Abeno's London mix shown above), put about a third of the mixture in the frying pan and place your filling on top of it. Then spoon the rest of the mixture over the top so that it covers all of this filling and spreads out to a larger size than the initial dollop. If you have no filling that needs to be in the middle, just "bosh" the whole mixture (as Jamie Oliver might say) into the frying pan trying to end up with something a couple of centimetres thick. Did you save some of that bacon? Now's the time to artfully arrange the strips you have on the top.
After a few minutes, the whole thing should have firmed up and you should be able to flip it. It will look something like the above and now the bacon strips will be getting nice and crispy. After a minute or so, you might want to press down on the whole thing to flaten it a bit to make sure it cooks through.
After another few minutes turn it over again and see how the bacon strips are doing. Mmmm... Bacon.
This isn't quite done as much as I'd like - the bacon should be crispier - but it comes down to personal preference. The thing's probably cooked through though.
When its cooked to your liking, transfer the okonomiyaki to a plate and look at it closely - maybe even drool a little.
Seen from further away it still looks awesome.
Looking at your food from multiple angles increases your appreciation of it. Do it now before you are overcome with the need to devour it. Maybe even take some pictures.
Now THAT'S some tasy looking bacon. Time to finish it off now with the all-important sauces.
The brown sauce is okonomiyaki sauce - available from Japan centre and probably some other places too. Kind of like brown sauce we have over here, but sweeter and not as tangy.
The white sauce is Japanese mayo - again, sweeter than the stuff we have over here but normal mayo will probably do.
The green stuff is aonori - dried seaweed. Not sure what else you could use... maybe sharpenings from a green crayon? Some people don't like it actually, so it will survive without. I love it though.
Have another look at your amazing creation.
Move closer and breathe in the exciting mixture of aromas.
Marvel at the quality of the camera in my mobile phone... and then go and eat :) Enjoy!
Not happy with the consistency of the okonomiyaki? This might be why! There's meant to be more than just flour in it. Here's pics of the ingredients from 3 types of okonomiyaki mix from Japan Centre.
All of them have a fishy element to them, so I tried using some fish stock in the mix I made and it was awesome. Also, using a bit more water and two spatulas (to avoid breakage) led to a much softer end result. Keeping a lid on the pan while frying helps as well.
Yam potato powder? I'm tempted to just put some instant mashed potato mix in there and see what happens.
