Okonomiyaki fritter-pancake-pizza

What is that? That, my friends, is my attempt at the 'Japanese Pizza' or japanese-ly known as Okonomiyaki. Japanese food being super expensive here and since Okonomiyaki is nowhere to be seen, I am therefore forced to learn Japanese cooking if I were to satiate my Japanese food cravings without breaking the bank. Japanese ingredients are available here at my beloved Tiger and Dragon Asia Supermarket. We go there every month and spend about 200 euros on Asian things like lemongrass and tumeric, tofu and prata (both from Tuas, Singapore mind you!) as well as the quintessential Dashi, Jap rice, bonito flakes and various other Japanese seasonings that previously did not catch my attention when shopping at Takashimaya, Singapore. Nowadays, we also go there for durians, but I digress. This post is about Okonomiyaki and how easy it is to make and how much I (and the children) love it. And I hide vegetables in them so the don't know that it is good for them too hur hur. Ok and now to the recipe, that is adapted from various Internet websites. There are so many out there, ranging from the Americanised version that did not add Dashi (and yet dare to call itself Japanese vegetable pancake) and others that are such purist versions that i don't know half the ingredients they call for (what is Koji and where can I get it?)

Anyway, here it is.

Ingredients (serves 4 for dinner)

The batter :

• Half a small cabbage (anymore and the gas is your own doing!)
• 1 carrot (not usually added, but this is my way of making sure that my kids get their beta carotenes)
• 2 cups flour (I used plain all purpose flour, self-raising is also possible)
• 2 1/3 cups water
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons dashi powder (or can be replace by chicken stock powder, but it ain't Japanese no more!)
•  About 200g shelled, uncooked prawns 

Shred the vegetables, by cutting finely by hand or using the food processor. Then in a bowl, add in the flour and 4 eggs, water and dashi powder and mix them using a mixer. Finally fold in the vegetables and there you have it, the batter is ready to go.




Heat oil in a frying pan. When hot, add batter to make a circle of whatever size you want. I made mine about the size of the pan. Let it cook until the bottom is crisp (about 3-5  mins). While waiting, add the prawns to the batter. Then flip and let the batter with the prawn side cook until crisp (another 3 mins).

For the Topping

• Okonomiyaki sauce or Tonkatsu sauce (store bought) 
• 1 to 2 spring onions sliced thinly 
• Japanese Mayonaise
• Bonito flakes 

Then add the toppings as generally as you want. I lacked Bonita flakes in the picture coz I ran out of them before remembering that I had to take a picture. I told my kids (who love pizza) that Japanese Pizza is ready and it was nice seeing them eating eagerly :-) Little did they know, there were eating cabbage and carrots too!

(I had some leftover batter and for breakfast the next day, I added chicken ham and Gouda cheese that I had in the fridge. Equally delicious and a great breakfast too! And reminded me somehow of Tako pachi balls. Hmm that would be my next project it seems!)

Mission accomplished.