Charles Gutjahr
Are you sick of okonomiyaki yet? Not me!
Today I had a few different ingredients around today so this is quite a different recipe to what I posted the other day. I used wombok cabbage which is crunchier and more moist, spring onion instead of a brown onion, Amy's homemade kimchi, and some lovely fatty free-range bacon!
This combination was particularly nice. Only problem is it didn't cook quite as well; it was a bit soft. I think I had too much liquid from the kimchi and wombok. I used 100ml of water like last time... perhaps it should be halved to 50ml? Try using as little water as possible while making sure the flour isn't dry.
Ingredients:
* 200g wombok / napa cabbage
* 1 spring onion / Chinese shallot
* 5mm slice of ginger
* 75g flour
* 50-100ml water
* 1 egg
* A whole chilli
* A big spoonful of fried shallots
* A really big spoonful of kimchi
* Two rashers of streaky bacon, fat separated from meat
* Vegetable oil (canola, peanut, etc)
To serve:
* Kewpie mayonnaise
* Otafuku okonomi sauce
* Shaved bonito
Start by chopping the vegetables finely. If the cabbage is chopped too coarse I find it doesn’t cook, so chop thin slices.
In a mixing bowl add the flour and water (but not the egg), then mix it into a paste. Then mix in all the vegetables and fried shallots into the paste, including the kimchi. Give it a good stir to make sure everything is coated. Finally break an egg on top and mix it through.
Heat a frypan to a medium-high heat, and add the bacon fat (keep the meat for later). My induction cooktop has heat levels 1 to 9, I use 7 for this. Once the fat has rendered down, discard the pieces of fat leaving the oil coating the pan.
Spoon the mixture into the pan then flatten it out into a thick pancake shape. Cook for 6-7 minutes on one side. While it is cooking lay the bacon meat on top of the pancake, then flip over and cook another 8-10 minutes on the side with the bacon. I find it needs a bit more cooking on the bacon side to properly cook through.
Serve it with the mayonnaise, okonomi sauce and shaved bonito on top. Eat!