Okonomiyaki aka Japanese Pizza
May 26, 2005 by Box Dog | 6 Comments
Ingredients
Okonomiyaki means "whatever you like, grilled in Japanese". It's one definition of "Japanese pizza" because, well, it does kinda look like pizza, and you eat it like one too.Today we'll be making Osaka-style Okonomiyaki. It's also popular in Hiroshima, but it's a little harder to make and doesn't appear to pay off much more in the taste department!
Base:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup dashi (or water, see below)*
1 egg
1/8-1/4 of a cabbage
Toppings - any of the below:
Chicken
Roast pork or beef
Squid, Octopus, other seafood
Corn
Mushrooms
Onion
Garnishing - any of the below, if you can find it and actually want it:
Katsuo-bushi (dried bonito flakes)
Sakura-ebi (dried shrimps)
Beni-shoga (red ginger)
Ao-nori (green seaweed)
Sauces:
Okonomiyaki sauce (or tonkatsu sauce)
Mayonnaise
* Dashi is Japanese stock, used in heaps of different recipes. When made up it smells like smoked fish and seaweed. You can buy it from oriental grocers in sachets that come in boxes like the one to the right of the beer in the picture above. Just mix up a bit with some hot water. If you can't find it, it's okay - just use water.
Step 1
So firstly grab that cabbage and chop it up finely. Better to have too much than too little because it shrinks a little as it cooks, and it's mega cheap anyway. Get out as much of the white stem parts as you can.
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Now add some of the finely chopped cabbage and mix as best you can. It should end up looking like this.
Step 5
Heat up your skillet, electric fry pan, grill, whatever you're going to use to cook this baby. Preferably use something that's got teflon on it :-)
Step 6
Now prepare your toppings. I'm using Chinese BBQ pork slices, a little bell pepper, some onion, mushrooms, parsley and spring onion. Just chop it all up good.
Step 7
Throw it all in the fry pan with some oil (sesame is good) to keep it all well-lubed. Cook until either heated through or in the case of raw meat or veges, for a few minutes until it's getting close to being cooked.
Step 8
Step 9
Step 10
Turn up the heat a little to medium and let that bad boy cook through for 5 minutes or so. Then flip it. In the picture below, I had to cut the round in half to flip it, which doesn't matter because we'll be cutting it into pieces later anyway. You could always make two okonomiyaki instead! Let it cook for another 5-10 minutes. You can break away a bit of the dough bit when it doesn't look raw any more and see if the cabbage and dough is cooked through.
Step 11
Flip it out onto a plate and cover liberally with Okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise! OH GOD MY TASTEBUDS!
Step 12
Cut, serve and savour! Bon apetit.
Now that you have learned how to make okonomiyaki aka japanese pizza, please be sure to view these other pizza recipes.
Additional Recipes
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6 Comments
Thank you for posting this recipe. I’ve only seen my Japanese Mom make it once, so I wasn’t confident when recreating it. With your visual cues, it came out great! One thing I did differently was wait until the first side was cooked, sprinkled the ingredients on top, and then flipped it to continue cooking. Oishkatta desu.
Wow, that was delicious and super easy to make. I once bought an okonomiyaki mix at a Japanese grocer, but this is a lot cheaper! Thanks for posting.
Wow, Box Dog did a great job detailing this recipe. If you are interested in more versions of Okonomiyaki recipes and a variety of ways to make the batter, check out http://okonomiyakiworld.com/best-okonomiyaki-recipe.html Have fun making Okonomiyaki!
Thank you so much. I just made this and it is delicious.I don’t have the Okonomiyaki sauce so I am using barbecue sauce. thanks. I loved it and my sister likes it too. Domo Arigato.
May 18, 2010
I hope this will keep warm for a while. I’m planning on taking this for school lunch. I will also use bbq sauce. I think it is similar to the okonomiyaki sauce. Thanks for this recipe.
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I used these measurements to make a vegetable okonomiyaki with cabbage, carrot, nameko mushrooms, spring onion and sakura ebi. Oishii! One note, unless you’re using raw meat or seafood it’s fine to mix all the ingredients into the batter and just cook together. Enjoy.