Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pancake) 日式烧饼

Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake) is one of our favourite food. This bring memories back to London again because London is not only a shopping heaven. It is also a cosmopolitan city gathered with people from around the world so basically you can find anything (authentic or fusion) you like in London. Japanese is one of the cuisines we like the most among all. There are many nice restaurants (family size or fine dining) hidden around London and the most famous places to find nice Japanese food would always be Golders Green, Swiss Cottage and city centre like Soho and the back streets in Oxford Circus. 

Okonomiyaki is made using a mixture of vegetables, meat or seafood and batter. In the restaurants you can normally find the choice of toppings like pork, shrimps, crab sticks etc. When we make it at home we would just see what we have in the refrigerator. Like this time we only have some mushroom frankfurters and fishcakes so we have them in our pancakes. No matter what fillings you have, it works perfectly with the sauces and trust me you will have an awesome satisfaction after eating this ^^ I always cannot resist to eat more lol

Ingredients: (makes 2 large pancakes serve 4-6)

1 bowl cabbage (finely sliced)

1 bowl onion (finely diced)

1 bowl plain flour (150g)

1 bowl water

2 frankfurter sausages (sliced)

2 pcs fishcakes (sliced)

1 egg

4 tbsp cooking oil (2 tbsp for each pancake)

1 tsp dashimoto (bonito powder)

1 tsp mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)

1 tsp sake (Japanese cooking wine)

1/2 tsp salt

some white pepper to taste

Dressing:

Mayonnaise

Okonomiyaki Sauce

Aonori (seaweed powder)

Bonito flakes

1. In a large bowl, add flour, water dashimoto, mirin and sake, stir until well mixed and no lumps. Add cabbage, onion, egg, sausage and fishcake slices into the batter and stir to make sure all the ingredients are coated with batter.

2. Heat a pan at medium heat and add in 2 tablespoon of cooking oil. Add in half of the mixture and fry until golden brown on one side. 

3. Flip the pancake over and fry the other side until golden brown. (This step is normally done by my husband who normally toss the pancake over easily. If you cannot toss it, transfer the pancake onto a plate and overturn it into the pan ^^)

4. Serve the pancake onto a plate. Squeeze the mayonnaise over the pancake in zig zag line and followed by the okonomiyaki sauce (follow the mayonnaise line). 

5.Sprinkle some seaweed powder on top of it and finish it up with loads of bonito flakes. 

Done and serve hot!