Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza

Ingredients:

Okonomiyaki means "whatever you like, grilled in Japanese". It's one definition of "Japanese pizza" because, well, it does kinda look like pizza, and you eat it like one too.

Today we'll be making Osaka-style Okonomiyaki. It's also popular in Hiroshima, but it's a little harder to make and doesn't appear to pay off much more in the taste department!

Base:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup dashi (or water, see below)*
1 egg
1/8-1/4 of a cabbage

Toppings - any of the below:
Chicken
Roast pork or beef
Squid, Octopus, other seafood
Corn
Mushrooms
Onion

Garnishing - any of the below, if you can find it and actually want it:
Katsuo-bushi (dried bonito flakes)
Sakura-ebi (dried shrimps)
Beni-shoga (red ginger)
Ao-nori (green seaweed)

Sauces:
Okonomiyaki sauce (or tonkatsu sauce)
Mayonnaise

* Dashi is japanese stock, used in heaps of different recipes. When made up it smells like smoked fish and seaweed. You can buy it from oriental grocers in sachets that come in boxes like the one to the right of the beer in the picture above. Just mix up a bit with some hot water. If you can't find it, it's okay - just use water.

Step 1:

So firstly grab that cabbage and chop it up finely. Better to have too much than too little because it shrinks a little as it cooks, and it's mega cheap anyway. Get out as much of the white stem parts as you can.

Step 2:

Now break an egg into a large bowl and pour in the dashi/water, and the flour.

Step 3:

Then beat with a whisk until smooth.

Step 4:

Now add some of the finely chopped cabbage and mix as best you can. It should end up looking like this.

Step 5:

Heat up your skillet, electric frypan, grill, whatever you're going to use to cook this baby. Preferably use something that's got teflon on it :-)

Step 6:

Now prepare your toppings. I'm using Chinese BBQ pork slices, a little bell pepper, some onion, mushrooms, parsely and spring onion. Just chop it all up good.

Step 7:

Throw it all in the frypan with some oil (sesame is good) to keep it all well-lubed. Cook until either heated through or in the case of raw meat or veges, for a few minutes until it's getting close to being cooked.

Step 8:

Arrange the nearly cooked toppings in a round...

Step 9:

Then throw the cabbage/dough mixture on top, also in a round!

Step 10:

Turn up the heat a little to medium and let that bad boy cook through for 5 minutes or so. Then flip it. In the picture below, I had to cut the round in half to flip it, which doesn't matter because we'll be cutting it into pieces later anyway. You could always make two okonomiyaki instead!

Let it cook for another 5-10 minutes. You can break away a bit of the dough bit when it doesn't look raw any more and see if the cabbage and dough is cooked through.

Step 11:

Flip it out onto a plate and cover liberally with Okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise! OH GOD MY TASTEBUDS!

Step 12:

Cut, serve and savour! Bon apetit.