Okonomiyaki

Ingredients

• 1/2 white cabbage, very finely shredded
• 200 g plain flour
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp dashi powder
• 8 spring onions, sliced
• 8 rashers of streaky bacon or thin pork belly
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 4 tbsp Japanese mayonnaise
• 60 g okonomiyaki or brown sauce
• a handful of bonito flakes
• 1 tsp aonori or crumbled nori

Method

1. Shred the cabbage very fine

   Slice the cabbage as thinly as you possibly can. Okonomiyaki is mostly cabbage held together by a little batter, and coarse shreds leave it loose and impossible to flip.

2. Make a thin batter

   Whisk the flour, eggs, dashi powder and about 150 ml water into a batter the thickness of pancake batter. It looks like far too little for the cabbage — that is correct.

3. Fold, do not stir

   Fold the cabbage and spring onions through with your hands until barely coated. Over-mixed, the cabbage releases water and the whole thing goes soggy.

4. Cook thick and slow

   Heat the oil and spoon the mixture into a thick round about 2 cm deep, laying the bacon flat over the top. Cook on a medium-low heat for 6 minutes — high heat burns the outside before the middle of a cake this thick is cooked.

   6 min

5. Flip once, confidently

   Slide it onto a plate, invert the pan over it and turn the whole lot over so the bacon side goes down. Cook another 6 minutes, pressing lightly. One flip only.

   6 min

6. Dress it properly

   Brush with the brown sauce, zigzag the mayonnaise over, then the bonito flakes and aonori. The bonito flakes writhe in the heat, which is half the fun of serving it.