Lately, though, I’ve been doing a very-low-carb paleo diet. I won’t go into exactly what the Paleo diet is, (you can read lots on ThePaleoDiet.com and on MarksDailyApple.com), except that you don’t eat any grains or seeds. That’s rice, wheat, quinoa, and lots of other things totally out. I can’t even make my usual gluten-free okonomiyaki!

So tonight I came up with a paleo-friendly okonomiyaki recipe. I did it Hiroshima-style, which is always my favorite.

Paleo Okonomiyaki Recipe

Batter:

• 6 Tb almond flour
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup dashi (or leftover miso soup)
• 1 tsp oil
• 2 Tb finely ground flax seeds (optional) (adds chewiness but is a non-paleo ingredient)

Fillings:

• 1 C shredded cabbage
• 1 Tb beni shouga
• 1 egg
• anything else you like!

Procedure:

1. Sprinkle a good cooking oil on a frying pan, and then heat up the pan. ALWAYS start with a sizzling hot pan.
2. Pour half of the batter into the pan, tilting the pan as necessary to let the batter spread into a nice circle.



3. Wait about 30 seconds, and then top the batter with all of the cabbage. Just pile it on there.
4. Let this cook down for about 2 minutes. You can make it go faster if you cover the pan for 60 seconds, but the cabbage will then be a bit soggy.
5. Make a “well” in the cabbage, and crack the egg on top of it. Immediately break the yolk and swish all of the egg so it covers the cabbage. (It may drop off your okonomiyaki and onto the pan. No worries! Just lift it up and back on top of the cabbage.)



6. Place other filling ingredients on top of the egg. I like to put a few springs of parsley in for color.
7. About a minute later, pour the rest of the batter on top of all of the fillings. Try to cover everything evenly, and this time if bits dribble into the pan, just let them go.
8. Ready to flip? This part can be challenging! Take your BEST SPATULA and lift up all of the edges of the pancake to make sure nothing is sticking. Then slide the spatula under the middle of the pancake and — very confidently, as if you cannot fail!! — flip the pancake in place.



9. With any luck, your flipped pancake now looks like that picture above, shown next to my hand for scale.
10. The Home Stretch! All you have to do now is wait until it looks like the egg inside of the pancake is all cooked, and then most likely the bottom of the pancake will be cooked too. Test the edges and then flip it onto a plate.
11. Sprinkle bonito flakes, which are like fish bacon, and decorate liberally with Kewpie mayo.
12. CONSUME!!

The only problem with paleo is that sugar is definitely off the diet. So no Okonomi Sauce. Hmm, maybe I’ll come up with a paleo version!?

Oh, and I don’t care if Kewpie mayo has some sugar in it. American mayonnaise just won’t do.

I just remembered, I forgot to top it with aonori! And I had some! Oh well, better okonomiyaki next time!

Here’s a straightforward Kansai-style Okonomi-yaki recipe that is totally vegan and much more simple to follow.

Ingredients

makes 4 large pancakes

• 2 vegetable boullion cubes dissolved in 2 cups hot water
• 1 cup sweet potato flour
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour
• 1 cup flour (whole wheat and buckwheat work well)

Fillings:

• 2 c shredded cabbage or kale
• 1/2 c grated carrots
• 1 c parboiled chopped broccoli
• 4 Tbs beni shouga or finely grated fresh ginger
• any other nice veggie you have on hand
• sea salt and pepper to taste

Put dry ingredients into a large bowl and stir together.

Gradually add in the veggie boullion, stirring.  Stop adding liquid when the batter appears pancake-like (thick, not too runny but still pourable).

Stir in all the fillings you would like.

Heat up a non-stick griddle or frying pan over medium high heat with a little sesame or peanut oil.  (Any oil you like really, but those two are tastiest.)

When the edges look a bit brown, carefully flip the okonomiyaki over. Press down firmly, and lower the heat to about medium. Cook for at least 10 minutes, pressing down occasionally, until it’s thoroughly cooked through.

No problem!  Tapioca flour is the real magic goo here.  Sweet potato flour makes for a smooth and chewy texture that becomes a mesh between the tapioca and the regular flour.

Need help finding tapioca and sweet potato flour?  Amazon has good deals on vegan ingredients for okonomiyaki:

• Tapioca Flour
• Sweet Potato Flour

Over at 100yendinner, the lovely Kanmuri has posted her 100-Yen Okonomiyaki — precisely 93-yen actually — which even includes beef!  That’s pretty luxurious in Japan.  ^_^

Kanmuri’s 100-Yen Okonomiyaki Dinner:

Beef: 50¥
Cabbage: 25¥
Egg: 18¥
Total:93¥

• This is not the exact recipe for Okonomiyaki but it is my simpler version of it.
• In a bowl mix half a cup of flour with half a cup of water. Add an egg and mix well
• Mince cabbage (a little less than 1/5 of a whole cabbage) and add it to the mix.
• Put about a table spoon of olive oil in a fry pan. Add the mixture and fry the same way you would a pancake. Add thin slices of beef or pork on top.
• Once the the okonomiyaki starts to brown, flip it over and wait for the meat to be cooked.
• Transfer in a serving plate and add mayonnaise, okonomiyaki sauce and aonori (green seaweed flakes) and serve!

I noticed that flour and okonomiyaki toppings aren’t in the ingredient price list.  I suppose it’s assumed that most people already have these on hand.

But the cost of a tablespoon of mayo and a half cup of flour wouldn’t jack the price up all that much.  All totaled, maybe it would come to about 150 yen — still impressive.

Whether you buy your ingredients in yen, dollars, or pounds, go give Kanmuri’s recipe a try and tell us how it works out for you!

The ingredients are pretty much the same — it’s the technique that makes them distinct.

Okonomiyaki in the Kansai and Kanto regions (aka Osaka-style okonomiyaki) is created by first putting the batter and all of your fillings into a big bowl, and mixing it into a pasty, lumpy mass before shaping it all into a pancake in the pan.

Hiroshima-yaki, on the other hand, requires a progressive layering of ingredients.  It begins with a small circle of batter on the grill, after which comes a heap of cabbage and fillings, proceeding to a fresh egg cracked on top of it all which is allowed to trickle down through the fillings and sort of glue them together.

What happens next depends on the chef, the style, and the fillings.  But usually, after the cabbage has cooked down quite a bit, the chef drizzles on another thin layer of batter, and then flips it to cook on the other side.

The effect is to create sort of a stuffed pancake.  And because the fillings and the egg are not mixed homogenously, the layered and varied textures of the pancake create an enjoyably interesting eating experience.

  In Hiroshima there’s a famous okonomiyaki restaurant called Waka-Taka that boasts the best Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki.  They’ve been doing it for 40 years — that’s more than enough time to become masters of their craft, I think! ^_^

Right on their front page you can see a progression of pictures that shows you how they make theirs.  It looks almost easy!

Most people seem to do Kansai-Style Okonomiyaki since it’s a little easier.

Have you tried making your own okonomiyaki in Hiroshima style?  What are your experiences with it?

Please post comments — I’m eager to hear about other people’s experiences making Hiroshima-yaki.

Here’s a recipe for one large Kansai-Style Okonomi-Yaki pancake from Bob & Angie [english version]:

Ingredients: (for 1 serving)

50-60 g flour, 1 egg, 1 cup dashi, 1-2 Tablespoons grated yamaimo (mountain potato), 70 g cabbage.
As desired: mirin, salt, 20-30 g thinly sliced pork, 1/2 squid, 10-20 small shrimp, cleaned and shelled, 2-3 whole oyster, oil.

Preparation:

Batter:

1. In a bowl mix egg add yamaimo.
   (Powdered yamaimo can be used)
2. Add salt, a little mirin, then flour. Mirin removes the powdery taste.
   note: Okonomiyaki mix can also be used. Just add egg and water.

Filling; Add any combination of ingredients to cabbage.

1. Dice cabbage to 1-1.5 mm pieces
2. Cut pork into 3 cm. pieces. Remove skin of squid. Cut into small pieces.
3. Wash shrimp and drain.

How to make:

1. Add cabbage and filling to batter.
2. Pre-heat hot plate or fry pan. Cover surface completely with oil.
3. Pour batter into a circle about 20 cm in diameter.
4. Cook for about 5 minutes or until golden brown. Turn over with a spatula .
5. Cook for about 5 min until completely cooked.
   Be careful not to overcook or burn. Do not press down on it.
6. Before eating one or a combination of the following sauces:
   Mayonnaise, tonkatsu or okonomi sauce, Japanese mustard (wagarashi). Catsup or any strong flavored sauce will do.

There are more pictures of the process over on Bob & Angie’s website.

You can also find a great glossary of Japanese ingredients.

I find it interesting that they say not to press down on it.  Many people say the opposite, that you should press down a bit.  I’ll explore this in a future post.