Japanese Cabbage Pancakes - Okonomiyaki Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Which cabbage is best for okonomiyaki? ›

Okonomiyaki is traditionally made with dashi, the essential Japanese soup stock, so if you have it, please use it in place of the vegetable stock. Half a regular-sized cabbage is all you'll need for this recipe and you could also substitute with purple cabbage.

What is Okonomiyaki? As a quick translation, okonomi (as you like it) + yaki (grilled) stands for a simple pancake batter made from flour, eggs and stock flavoured water (usually dashi), filled with cabbage and other tasty ingredients like pork, shrimp or corn.

Okonomiyaki Recipe Tips

If your cabbage is too chunky, they won't hold together well, and they'll have a denser, less delicate texture. I always use my mandoline when I make this recipe. If you don't have one, finely shred the cabbage in a food processor or with a sharp knife. Don't pack it down too much.

There are two significantly different types of Okonomiyaki. First, the Kansai or Osaka style, in which the ingredients are all mixed into a batter and then grilled. Second, the Hiroshima style, in which a small crepe-like pancake is grilled and then other ingredients are layered on top.

The best think is to use regular flour, but then also add some yam starch or potato starch or rice flour to make the batter more sticky. See the Alternative Batter Recipes. Okonomi Sauce Substitutes: If you don't have Okonomi sauce on hand you can make your own.

Okonomiyaki is sometimes translated into English as "as-you-like-it pancake". However, this may be misleading. Though it does consist of batter cooked on a griddle, okonomiyaki has nothing of the sweetness or fluffiness of pancakes, not to mention that it is usually filled with octopus, shrimp, pork, yam or kimchi.

Bonito flakes - known as katsuobushi in Japanese - are a strange food upon first sight. They are known to move or dance when used as a topping on foods such as okonomiyaki and takoyaki. It can be an odd sight upon first viewing if moving food makes you squeamish.

Okonomiyaki is healthy!

Because Okonomiyaki is made from various kinds of ingredients, such as eggs, meat and vegetables, it contains much of our daily nutritional requirements.

Make sure you only add the batter to the vegetables at the last minute before cooking. If you leave the vegetables in the batter too long, the water will come out and you'll have a soggy mess that's impossible to flip without breaking.

Working over a sink, flip the entire thing over so that the okonomiyaki deposits itself onto the lid, then carefully slide it right back into the pan. The second side will take another 10 minutes of cooking.

What do Japanese use to shred cabbage? ›

To achieve perfectly thin-sliced cabbage, you can use a knife in a pinch, but it's often easier, quicker, and more precise to use a mandolin. (Just make sure to protect your hand from getting cut!)

Japanese yam (either yamaimo which is mountain yam or nagaimo which is long yam), help give the batter a fluffy, bouncy texture. Sometimes people make okonomiyaki without it (just add more baking powder), but I prefer it since it really makes the texture much better.

A close cousin to okonomiyaki is hiroshimayaki, or Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki.

Monjayaki (もんじゃ焼き, often called simply "monja") is a type of Japanese pan-fried batter, popular in the Kantō region, similar to okonomiyaki, but using different liquid ingredients.

If you find it impossible to get your hands on Japanese Mountain Yams (Yamaimo), they can be substituted by White Rice Flour, but then your Okonomiyaki will in fact turn into Korean Pancakes instead. Perhaps just check a normal Okonomiyaki recipe, and if you are gluten intolerant, keep looking for those Mountain Yams.

Japanese Spring Cabbage

In Japanese, cabbage that's harvested in early spring is called haru-kyabetsu (spring cabbage).

Many people prefer savoy cabbage to regular cabbage because of its milder flavour and tender leaves. This is the perfect cabbage for using raw and thinly sliced in salads, stir-fries, or braised with butter. Savoy cabbage works nicely as a fresh and crunchy wrap – you can substitute it for rice paper or tortillas.

Like savoy, napa cabbage has a delicate texture and sweeter flavor compared to red and green cabbage. Its leaves aren't quite as soft as savoy, so they add a mild crunch to raw dishes. When cooked, the sweetness intensifies, making it an ideal choice for sauteing or grilling.

Also known as pointed, hispi, or Chinese cabbage, the name sweetheart is used because of its sweet flavour, and because the French word for cabbage, chou, is used as a pet name for a sweetheart, not, as you might think, because it has a shape like a heart.