Trying something different: Japanese Okonomiyaki

Years ago my dad lived in Japan & absolutely loved it. He always talks about how Japan was one of his favorite places he has lived (outside of the US), and how he loved almost all the food he got the chance to eat over there. Over the past several years, he has tried to ask around at different Japanese restaurants to see if they make it, and none of them did (although they knew what he was talking about). In August my dad decided to look up the recipe, and printed it out and handed it to me. He figured since I love cooking new and different things, I would love to try to make it. I put it off a couple of months, being so busy with traveling and job searching, but now that things have settled down, I decided to try it out.
If I were to try to describe Okonomiyaki, I would say it is a really tasty Japanese pancake, although when we think of American pancakes, we typically think of syrup and butter covered flour pancakes.
These "pancakes" are way different. I tried to make it as close to the original recipe as possible, but we just don't have a lot of the ingredients that they do in Japan.
Okonomiyaki is derived from the word "okonomi" meaning "what you like" and "yaki" meaning "grilled" or "cooked". It's really up to the person making it as to what you decide to put in it.
The recipe I based my own Americanized recipe from, is Osaka-style.

Ingredients

• 4 oz grated potato (the original recipe calls for a taro root or yam) 
• 1 tablespoon Anori or nori, crumbled (toasted seaweed paper- what they use to make sushi)
• 1 tablespoon Panko (Japanese style breadcrumbs) or if you can find them, Bonito flakes
• Japanese mayo, to put on top of the pancake. You may find something that says "Japanese White Sauce" (yes it is different from American mayo)
• 5 tablespoons low sodium vegetable stock (most recipes may use beef stock) 
• 2 tablespoons White or red ginger, dried or fresh
• 2 cups chopped cabbage
• 3 tablespoons chopped green onion
• 3 eggs
• 2 ounces all purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• If you can find them, tiny dried shrimp (I couldn't find them)
• Pork belly (I chose not to add this ingredient)
• You can also add soy sauce, but I did not.

So basically, I made a vegetarian version.

Directions 

Yield: 3 medium or 2 large Okonomiyaki

• Start out by peeling a potato, and then grating 4 ounces. This creates a sticky pulp that gives the batter a nice consistency. 
• Mix the grated potato with the vegetable stock and flour, and add two of the eggs, creating a loose batter 
• Heat up some of the canola oil in a frying pan, and dribble some of the batter in the hot oil (about medium heat)
• Cook until golden brown. Drain off the oil and allow the batter (called tenkasu) to cool. 
• Add the chopped cabbage to the batter 
• Add the other egg, and stir with a spatula to combine
• Add the ginger, green onion and panko; mix
• Heat up the frying pan again to medium-low, and spread around a thin layer of canola oil
• Spread 1/3 or 1/2 of the batter in a circle on the pan. It will be easier to go with a smaller size to make flipping easier
• Put on a lid and let it steam cook for about 5 minutes
• Take 2 spatulas and flip over the okonomiyaki carefully (this will be somewhat hard to do)
• Continue cooking without a lid for 4 minutes. Lower the heat if it's cooking too fast, or turn it up if it isn't cooking fast enough
• Add the crumbled nori, a little more of the panko, & Japanese mayo as toppings

Here it is! They are a nice little snack, or you could eat two and have a meal. They are quite filling, and very delicious. My dad said the ones he had were a little different, but hey, I did my best to create this recipe I had never heard of before. He loved them and said, "Who knew that decades after living in Japan, I would be eating Okonomiyaki again". I still have a lot of these specialty ingredients left over, so will probably make some again soon. And yes this may not be the healthiest of dishes, but everything in moderation! Plus, it does have veggies and healthy unsaturated fats.