Pancakes Japanese style

Ok I’ll admit it – I got confused and thought this week was pancake day! I knew I had half a cabbage plus my eggs left so I was thinking some sort of savoury pancake and then I remembered the fabulous Japanese pancakes I’d had. A bit of googling later and I had supper sorted out. Apparently Okonomiyaki roughly means “as you like it”, and is almost the Japanese equivalent of bubble and squeak. It can be filled with whatever you’ve got, but apparently the essential ingredient is cabbage. It is supposed to be served with Okonomiyaki sauce, which is kind of like Japanese HP sauce and a Japanese version of mayonnaise.

I’ve mangled the recipes so much that I daren’t call it Okonomiyaki, so I shall go for Japanese inspired pancakes:

Japanese inspired pancakes with home sauce
125g plain flour
1 tbsp cornflour
½ tsp baking powder
1 egg
160 ml stock (veg stock, or dashi if you can get hold of it)
½ cabbage finely shredded
Random other fillings (I used some chopped mushrooms and some smoked salmon: traditionally it would be prawns or shredded pork)

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Mix the plain flour, cornflour and baking powder together in a largish mixing bowl. In a small bowl gently whisk together the egg and stock. Add the egg and stock into the flour mix and mix gently until you have a pancake batter.


Now add the cabbage and other fillings.


Take a large frying pan and heat a tbsp of oil. Put all the mixture into the pan and cook, turning it over at least once.

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Whilst it is cooking you can make the sauce.


Mix together:


3 tbsp tomato ketchup
3 tbsp Worcester sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cornflour mixed with a little water.



Put them all in a jug and microwave for 1 minute. Stir and then microwave again for another 30s.

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Serve the pancake with the sauce artistically drizzled on top (or in a jug on the side!)









Note: next time I thing I will either use a bigger pan or cook it in two batches as it took a bit of cooking in the middle!

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