Cheat's Okonomoyaki

When I saw this recipe for easy okonomoyaki over on droolfactor I couldn't help but get excited. Okonomoyaki is one of my fave non-sushi or sashimi Japanese dishes and I have yet to see it on the menu of any of the Japanese restaurants we frequent here in town. Normally I'd prefer to go with the traditional version but given that the last couple of weeks have been a little expensive for us I was more than happy to go with this anglicized version that used ingredients I ordinarily had on hand.  To start with I completely forgot the egg, so the first pancake was a little off and kind of sludgey.  The second (with egg) was a little more regular and even flipped ok and, at a stretch, resembled a true okonomoyaki. This was Wil's serving.  The third went all kinds of wrong, possibly because I was trying to use up all of the batter, possibly because I had never measured the amounts of batter I was putting in the pan and kind of ended with giant pancakes. They looked regular size to me, but given my inexperience maybe I should have stuck to the guidelines and gone with the smaller versions.   All in all they looked a complete shambles but they tasted good and pretty close to the real thing, so I was stoked!  I'm pretty sure I'll be making these again sometime soon :)

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup dashi stock (I used diluted chicken stock instead)
1 egg
1/4 head of cabbage, shredded
6 – 8 strips of streaky bacon (1 strip per pancake)
Makeshift okonomi sauce (1/4 cup bbq sauce mixed with 1 tsp worchestershire sauce)
Regular mayonnaise

Before things went overly wrong, but as you can see, somewhat sludgey to begin with

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour and stock with a pinch of salt and whisk till you get a smooth batter. Add in the shredded cabbage and beaten egg. Mix well. 

In a hot greased skillet, place about 5 – 6 tablespoons of the cabbage mixture – keeping it as round as possible. (Just like you would a pancake) Lower the heat and keep an eye on the bottom to make sure it doesn’t burn. 

In the meantime, slice one strip of bacon into 4 one inch pieces and place them on the topside of the cooking pancake. After about 2 – 3 mins or until the bottom is nicely golden, flip the pancake. The bacon should now be on the underside, busily browning away. Cook another 2 – 3 minutes or until bacon and the rest of the pancake is cooked, crisp and golden brown. 

Remove from skillet, and top with mayonnaise and the bbq sauce mixture. Serve hot. Repeat with the rest of the batter.

Some homemade spicy crab sushi saves the day!