My Favorite Recipes Collection: January 2025

Okonomiyaki is a Japanese teppanyaki, savory pancake dish consisting of wheat flour batter and other ingredients (mixed, or as toppings) cooked on a teppan (flat griddle). Common additions include cabbage, meat, and seafood, and toppings include okonomiyaki sauce (made with Worcestershire. Okonomiyaki is mainly associated with two distinct variants from Hiroshima or the Kansai region of Japan, but is widely available throughout the country, with toppings and batters varying by area. The name is derived from the word okonomi, meaning "how you like" or "what you like", and yaki, meaning "grilled". It is an example of konamono (konamon in the Kansai dialect), or flour -based Japanese cuisine. It is also called by an abbreviated name, "okonomi", where the O is a politeness prefix and konomi means ‘favorite’.

A portmanteau of Okonomi (what you like) and Yaki (grilled), it literally means, “What you like, grilled.” As such, there’s no one ‘correct’ way to make okonomiyaki. Think of it like a regional hot dog, where the core of the dish stays pretty consistent, but the toppings and preparation might vary. Two regions of Japan lay claim to okonomiyaki as we know it today: The pancake dish found in Osaka (and the Kansai region overall) consists of a thicker pancake with everything mixed into one layer, but in Hiroshima, you’ll find a very thin layer of pancake at the bottom with each ingredient and topping layered on top in a specific order. Batter, powdered bonito, cabbage, fried tempura bits, green onions, bean sprouts, thin-sliced pork, soba noodles, egg, umami-sweet-savory Okonomi sauce, and shaved seaweed make up the core of

Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, but there’s a lot of variance here.

So when we traveled to Japan in March/April of 2024, we were looking for vegetarian food options, one of our dearest friends who was our travel companion found this restaurant who had vegan version of this dish. I loved it and of course I wanted to make it at home. There is no way to communicate with the chef about the ingredients and how to make it, as I don't know Japanese, so from my memory of what was in it and what I saw at various stalls where they were making meat/seafood version of it. I came up with following recipe and it came out pretty close.

For the sauce I am not fan of Worcestershire sauce to make the
okonomiyaki sauce, so I came up with my own version to make

this sauce. I will give you the recipe for the batter for pancake first and then the sauce that I made, and then how to put it all together. Typically they top the it with Japanese mayonnaise but none of us are mayonnaise fans, so I omitted this topping. To make batter for the pancake I used following ingredients:

Batter for pancake Ingredients:

* 1 cup of Moong dal soaked

* 1/2 cup of Moong dal flour

* 1/4 cup of tapioca flour

* 1/4 cup of Hemp hearts

* Salt to taste

For toppings I used following:

* Finely diced cabbage (about 1/2 of small cabbage)

* Hakka noodles with tofu in it (this I had made earlier, the recipe is on this blog under following link but you can use any noodles with vegetables of your choice.)

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7834663279929806818/5809562209707252274?hl=en

(You can copy and paste this link in your browser to look at this recipe)

* Tofu: you can dice the tofu in small cubes grill it on griddle and crumble it ( I just picked out the tofu from my Hakka noodle dish that I had made earlier)
* One bunch of Cilantro finely chopped

* One bunch of green onions finely diced with greens
* My version of okonomiyaki sauce

Method to make batter:

* Soak the Moong dal for 3-4 hours

* When soft, grind it in food processor

* Add Moong dal flour, Tapioca flour, Heart of Hemp

* Add salt.

* Add water to dilute it to pancake batter consistency

* You can add spices to batter to your taste like onion powder, garlic, or turmeric. I did not add anything.

* Set aside

* Work on getting all the topping ready

Toppings and batter are all ready.

For okonomiyaki sauce I basically mix any Asian sauce and ingredients I could get hold of my pantry and fridge and followed the basic recipe for this sauce from internet. So here are the ingredients I used :

* One 1/4 cup of Ketchup

* 1 tablespoon of Soya seasoning sauce (can use Soya sauce)

* 2 tablespoon of Maple syrup

* 1 tablespoon of sweet balsamic reduction

* 1 table spoon of Tangy Tamarind dip Sauce

* 2 table spoon of Bean Garlic Sauce

* 2 tables spoon if Orange Stir fry sauce

Mix all the ingredient and keep it aside. You can double the recipe to make more sauce.

Now to put it together:

* Grease a non stick griddle with vegetable oil spray

* Spread the batter in round shape on griddle on medium low heat

* Cover it and let it cook the one side is light brown, cook both sides until light brown.

* Flip it and spread the prepared sauce on it

* Top it with diced cabbage, some more sauce, tofu crumbles and noodles.

* Put more sauce on it

* Flip the entire pancake on another non stick heated griddle.

* On the first griddle make another round pancake of medium heat.

* Cover it to cook it same way until both sides are light brown

* The first pancake with all the topping that you flipped on another griddle, flip it again care fully and cover it with the other cooked pancake.

* Now top it with more sauce cilantro and green onions

* Serve hot.

Hints and notes:

* If you like open faced pancake without the other pancake then you can omit make the other pancake and just top the cilantro and green onions on the open face pancake with cabbage and noodles.

* I am not fan of eggs but if you like instead of second top layer of another pancake you can make and omelet and cover the open face pancake with omelet and the toppings.

* You can use mayonnaise topping. Once I used home made yum yum sauce topping which was good too

* In the picture you can see some cashews, which is from my Hakka noodles that I had made.

* You can made the pancake as thin as crepes if you like.

* There can be many variation of topping there are no rules.

Enjoy !