Okonomiyaki

Personally, I like japanese food very much. Teenagers in my country tend to be influenced a lot of things from Japan, which come from comic, manga, series, singers, actors and even food. I used to visit Japan for 3 times and it impressed me.

In my second trip in Japan, I tried Okonomiyaki (it call "Savory Pancake"), it's amazing for me!. Staff at restaurant get our order and prepare ingredients for us, he fried Okonomiyaki on build-in griddles on the table in front of us. Each person becomes a chef, in charge of cooking his or her own pancake. After this trip I cook Okonomiyaki to my family and they said it delicious, here is recipe.^_^ It's very simply.to find ingredients and easy to cook.
















Pic from wikipedia

Ingredients (for serves 4) 920 cals
- 600g cabbage
- 8 raw shrimp, shelled and deveined
- 220g squid, cleaned and skinned
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 4 pinched salt
- 4 eggs
- Optional; 4 Tbsps tenkasu (deep-fried tempura batter crumbs)
- 2 Tbsps vegetable oil
- 300g pork belly, thinly sliced
- 2 Tbsps finely chopped beni-shoga (red vinegared ginger)

Toppings
- Okonomiyaki sauce
If not available, make the following substitute.
- 2 Tbsps tomato puree
- 2 Tbsps ketchup
- 1/3 cup Worcester-shire sauce
- 3 Tbsps dark soy sauce
- 1 Tbsps sugar
- 7 Tbsps bonito stock (dashi)
Combine in a saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Thicken with 2 Tbsps cornstarch dissolved in 2 Tbsps water, return to a boil, remove from heat and let cool.
- Mayonnaise
- Dried bonito powder (ko-gatsuo) or dried bonito flakes
- Green-seaweed flakes (ao-nori)

1. Chop the cabbage coarsely. Cut the shrimp in half lengthwise. Cut the squid into bite size.

2. Devide all the ingredients into 4 portions and mix to make 4 separate bowls of cake batter.

3. Combine the flour, baking powder, water and pinch salt in a bowl and then mix in the chopped cabbage.

4. Add the egg and mix well. Finally add the squid, shrimp and tenkasu and mix again.

5. Coat the bottom of large frying pan with vegetable oil and saute one-quarter of pork breifly over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium, pour 1 bowl of batter in over the pork and shape into a round pancake about 1 inch thick and 8 inches in diameter.

6. Top with the red vinegared ginger and cook until the bottom begin to brown. Turn and brown the other side.

7. When cooked through, brush on a generous coating of Okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise and sprinkle with bonito powder and green-seaweed flakes. Transfer to a plates and serving each as soon as it is done.