SMBC #4 - Pseudo-pancakes Part 1 - Okonomiyaki!

Shrove Tuesday aka Pancake Day was this week, so we thought we'd do a pseudo-pancake themed SMBC! Here's Part 1 about Okonomiyaki, with Part 2 about Kaiserschmarrn coming soon =)

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How do you describe okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) to the uninitiated? It's like a pizza, but the toppings are inside? A pancake which is savoury? Does it even matter?

Okonomiyaki is often literally translated from Japanese to mean grilled (yaki) as you like it (okonomi), and its home is Osaka as one of the many delicious creations from the Kansai region. The Hiroshima region also has its own style of okonomiyaki which is layered and has soba noodles in it. Yum.

Given the incredibly sorry state of Japanese food in Cambridge *cough cough Teri-aki cough Wagamama*, there was no chance I'd be able to satisfy my okonomiyaki cravings dining out, so the only thing to do was to make it!

There are a million recipes for okonomiyaki which have pretty much the same basic ingredients but in widely varying proportions. We decided to very loosely follow this recipe by Maki from Just Hungry (my favourite Japanese food website!)

Ingredients:	Optional Fillings and Toppings:
70 g grated Japanese yam** 4 medium eggs 1 to 1 1/2 cups plain flour some dashi stock** 1/3 of a Chinese cabbage pinch of baking powder a stem of spring onion	thin strips of pork belly** kimchi Kewpie mayonnaise** Okonomiyaki sauce** Dried bonito shavings**

There are lots of ** stars! I'll try to explain stuff as we go through =P

About the ingredients:
I'm going to go through this relatively briefly... you can read all about it in detail at Just Hungry.

Grated Japanese yam... it's known by several different names in Japan: tororo, nagaimo, yamaimo, it's all the right stuff, but it's not the same as regular yam. I had a hard time finding it in shops, so all I could manage was this frozen yam already grated from Seoul Plaza on Mill Rd.
There are lots of recipes without yam, but according to Maki the yam is critical for the wonderful moist bitey texture. I've yet to do the control experiment without the yam to see if this is true, but I'll believe it for now.

*Update*: I tried the recipe again replacing the yam with cornflour and it turned out way too heavy and dense. Conclusion - grated yam is definitely necessary for a good okonomiyaki.

Dashi stock is the basis of so much Japanese cuisine. It's usually made by soaking and heating dried kelp (konbu) and bonito shavings (katsuobushi) in water. Full of umami. Problem is, bonito shavings are really expensive outside of Japan, so I only used kelp, which is totally not the same but whatever. You can also buy instant stock powder, although I have an irrational disliking for it.

Okonomiyaki sauce tastes kinda like BBQ sauce or brown sauce or HP sauce, but not exactly. Japanese mayo is thicker and sweeter than regular mayo, and once again Maki has a recipe for it =) I'll try it one day.

As I mentioned before, bonito shavings are expensive. Usually you top okonomiyaki with the shavings and the rising steam makes the shavings "dance". We decided just to substitute it for furikake which is used as a rice flavouring/topping in Japanese cuisine. This one contains dried seaweed, fish flakes, sesame seeds and other goodies.

Kimchi is Korean pickled cabbage. Delicious. I hear it's very hard to make it right yourself though, and can go rotten and stinky if you try.

Top Left: Cheapo dashi stock ; Top Right: Regular batter ; Bottom: Kimchi batter

Procedure:

0. Make dashi stock. Usually you'd soak kelp and bonito shavings in water for a while (30 mins at least) then just bring to the boil and strain out the shavings and kelp. My poor man's stock was just kelp soaking in hot water for 5 minutes...

1. Combine grated yam, eggs, flour, baking powder in a bowl and splash in enough dashi stock to get a nice not-too-runny consistency. We only ended up using maybe 20 mL it seems. If it's too watery, add more flour. If it doesn't bind, add another egg...
Protip: You can make impromptu miso soup with the remaining dashi stock by simply adding miso paste. You could go all out with some tofu cubes and spring onion too.

2. Slice the cabbage into small strips and add as much as you like provided there's enough batter still to combine everything. Add chopped spring onion.

3. Mix in any fillings you like except raw meats. We made a plain one, and a kimchi one. Mochi works really well. Fried batter bits called tenkasu are awesome. Really, anything goes here.

4. Add a small amount of oil to frying pan over medium heat and add the batter and flatten out. Layer pork belly slices on top. We couldn't find any decent pork belly slices so we resorted to pancetta which is really too fatty and strongly flavouring. Oh well, still tastes awesome.

5. Check when golden brown and flip! Put a lid over it to let it cook through for a few minutes, then it's ready to be sauced up.

6. Top with okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise, followed by bonito shavings or some furikake.

This seriously tastes like what you get in Japan... just crisp on the outside but still with enough gooey bite on the inside. So so good. Must do this again.

Here's a preview of Part 2... something so delicious that people are coming through our window to eat it??

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On a serious note, our thoughts are with everyone in Japan dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake a few days ago. Please give them your support in whatever way you can.