User blog:Multimoog/Shawn's Special Okonomiyaki

Okonimiyaki is a Japanese dish that you may have heard referred to as "Japanese pizza", and is a flat, bread-like dish containing meats, vegetables and various sauces. "Okonomiyaki", roughly translated, means "as you like it", and the point is to customize it according to your own tastes. There's a basic all-purpose recipe, but it's more intended as a jumping-off point than something to be adhered to rigidly, most professional okonomiyaki chefs in Japan have their own signature recipes. You make the basic batter, then add ingredients you think are tasty and add toppings when it's cooking, then a special sauce at the end. Here's mine:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable or chicken soup stock
• 4-6 eggs
• 1 - 1 1/4 lb cabbage
• 6 tbsps chopped green onion
• 2/3 cup tenkasu (tempura flakes)
• 12 - 18 strips of thinly sliced pork, beef or chicken

For toppings:

• Ao-nori (green dried seaweed)
• Okonomiyaki sauce (or tonkatsu sauce)
• Mayonnaise

Pour the soup stock in a bowl, and mix the flour and tempura flakes into the soup stock. Rest the batter for an hour in the refrigerator. Chop the cabbage finely. Take about 1/2 cup of the batter (to make one piece of okonimiyaki) in another bowl. Mix a handful of the cabbage (about 1/4 lb), some chopped green onion (about 1 tbsp), and tempura flakes (about 2 tbsps) in the batter. Make a hole in the middle of the batter and add an egg in the hole, then stir the batter. Heat a flat pan or griddle on medium (and oil slightly if it isn't non-stick). Pour the batter over the pan to make a round pancake-like shape. Fry the meat or your choice of toppings on the side. Cook both the meat and okonomiyaki for 5-7 minutes and place the meat on top of the okonomiyaki. Flip the okonomiyaki and cook for 5-7 more minutes.

When the okonomiyaki is cooked on both sides and through the middle (so it isn't runny), add your toppings. If you're using nori (the dried seaweed), you can get it as a sheet and cut out fun shapes to decorate the top with (you can even spell out a message), or grind it up into flakes and sprinkle it on top. Okonomiyaki or tonkatsu sauce or mayo all make good toppings, but I prefer something more unconventional. I like to use a jar of Ah-So sauce mixed with a few tablespoons of spicy mustard to give it a nice rich color and a sweet/savory/spicy flavor. If you can't find Ah-So sauce in your area, Chinese barbecue sauce will work as well. You could also sprinkle on some crunchy Chinese noodles, bacon bits, chopped scallions, bean sprouts, or whatever you think would taste good.