Okonomiyaki Pancakes

Looking for a simple recipe for your Takibi Time gathering? Try Okonomiyaki.

Okonomiyaki is a traditional Japanese savoury pancake dish made on a hot plate (teppanyaki). The base is formed from an egg flour batter with sliced cabbage, and other ingredients can be added as your preference, with common additions including pork, prawns, seafood.

Its name comes from two Japanese words: ‘konomi’ which means a liked thing or preference, and ‘yaki’ which means fried. 

Okonomiyaki has two popular variants: Hiroshima style and Osaka style. Hiroshima style often serves pancakes on top of noodles, whereas Osaka style is eaten as is.  

It makes a perfect Takibi Time hot plate camping dish, as we saw at Snow Peak Way.  

Ingredients (4 pancakes): 

Batter: 

100g Flour 

1tbsp Dashi powder (Japanese stock) - use Konbu Dashi to make it vegetarian 

1 Egg 

100ml Water 

¼ Cabbage (roughly 180g) - sliced thinly or grated 

Pinch of salt 

This is the basic ratio of the pancake batter and can be multiplied up depending on how many you’re serving.  

Toppings: 

Pork belly, thinly sliced 

Prawns (sliced in half) 

Sauce (at the end): 

Okonomiyaki Sauce (sold in most Japanese/Asian supermarkets) 

Kewpie Mayonnaise or regular mayo 

Katsuobushi (dried fish flakes) 

Aonori (seaweed powder) .

Method 

Combine the batter ingredients in the order above, being careful not to overmix. Before adding the sliced cabbage, the batter should hold together without being too runny.  

Preheat your Takibi with the Grill Plate so it is very hot. Ensure the fire is attended to throughout the cooking process so it doesn’t die out and stays a consistent high temperature. If using a pan, choose a large flat based frying pan. Add a generous amount of cooking oil to the pan so it won’t burn. 

Once the surface is hot, place down thin strips of pork or prawns if using in the center of the pan, and pour one ladle’s worth of batter above it making sure to spread out the mixture evenly and flatten it down. 

Cook until golden brown and then flip to cook the other side. Compress with a spatula to ensure the middle is cooked.

Once it is cooked through and golden brown, transfer onto a plate and in the following order add:

Okonomiyaki sauce, Kewpie mayonnaise (regular mayo is fine too), katsuobushi fish flakes and Aonori seaweed powder.

Images from SPW24 - Credit Ryan Winterbotham