Homemade Okonomiyaki Recipe (Osaka-style)

Hi everyone, it's Yuto from slushyrecipes.com and today I'm going to show you how to make an iconic Japanese street food dish called Okonomiyaki. Today I'm going to show you how to make it Osaka style and we'll even be making our own Okonomiyaki sauce. So let's start with the ingredients. To make the sauce, you'll need 1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce, 1 tbsp of oyster sauce, 2 tbsp of ketchup, 1 tbsp of honey and 1 tsp of soy sauce. Just mix them all together in a small bowl and that's it. So quick and easy. Otafuku is the most popular brand of Okonomiyaki sauce in Japan but this homemade sauce is as close as it gets. Okay, set aside for later and we'll go over the rest of the ingredients. For 2 portions of Okonomiyaki, you'll need 100g of cake flour, 75ml of dashi stock, 1 tsp of milk, 1 tsp of tsuyu sauce, 3 eggs, 150g of cabbage, about 2 cups worth, 2 tbsp of tenkasu, tempura bits, 2 tsp of beni shoga, pickled ginger, 100g of pork belly thinly sliced, 2 tbsp of vegetable oil, 1 tbsp of Japanese mayonnaise, 1 tbsp of katsuobushi bonito flake and 1 tsp of aonori. So the first step is to make a batter. We sift the cake flour into a bowl. This is to get rid of any lumps and make the Okonomiyaki nice and fluffy. The reason I use cake flour is because I don't want it to be too heavy. Okonomiyaki is a type of savoury pancake. The main ingredients are egg, cabbage and pork but it's a versatile dish and you can add lots of different things. Okonomi means as you like so customising is expected. Okay next add the dashi, milk, tsuyu sauce and 1 egg. I'm gonna mix this with a whisk so make sure the batter is smooth. If you don't have tsuyu you can use soy sauce instead. Using dashi is extremely important for Okonomiyaki. It gives it depth and a more authentic Japanese flavour. We only use 75ml so I used an instant powder dashi for this. Make sure it's cold when you add it as well. Many special Okonomiyaki flours contain dashi powder. That's why it's okay to just use water with these but when you're making it from scratch like this always use dashi not water. If you want to make dashi from scratch I got a recipe on my website. The link is in the description below. Okay this looks good and smooth to me so I'm gonna cover it with plastic wrap and rest it in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour. This will make it lighter, cook more evenly and stop it from spreading when we fry it. Next I'm gonna get my cabbage and cut it into small rough pieces. Start by cutting it into thick strips like this. Okonomiyaki uses green cabbage the same kind you'd use in coleslaw or salad. It's crunchy and has a pleasant flavour so don't substitute it for other kinds of cabbage if you can. Now we're gonna cut the strips into smaller pieces like this. Cutting the cabbage small makes Okonomiyaki easier to eat but you don't need to make it too small. In fact if it's too small it can get a bit soggy. Some professionals like to store the cut cabbage in the fridge for an hour to dry it out but it's completely optional. Okay my butter has been resting for 30 minutes so next I'm gonna transfer half of it into a new bowl. We're making two Okonomiyakis today so this is the first one. Add half of the cabbage and your extra fillings. I have beni shoga, a type of pink pickled ginger and tenkasu tempura crumbs. Add one more egg and then mix it up. At this point you can add any fillings you like. Popular options include cheese, mochi, kimchi, seafood, even nuts or crisps. You might be wondering why I make one Okonomiyaki at a time rather than just mixing everything together in one big bowl. Well that's because it's better to add the cabbage to the batter just before cooking otherwise the cabbage can start to release water into the batter making it runny and soggy. Okay this is mixed enough let's cook. Hit a frying pan on medium high and add the drizzle of vegetable oil. If you're lucky enough to have teppanyaki grill that's the more authentic way to cook it but a big frying pan works fine and is more accessible. Spoon the batter into the middle like this. We use medium high heat here to stop it from spreading. Okonomiyaki is supposed to be thick. If it spreads a little you can neaten up the edges with a spatula. Next place the pork belly over the top. I'm using a thinly sliced one but thicker than this is also fine. You can even use unsmoked bacon if you can't get thinly sliced pork belly in your supermarkets. We're just going to let it fry for a few minutes until it's brown and crispy on the bottom. Once it reaches this point flip it over lower the heat to medium low and place a lid on top. We use a lower heat to stop the meat on the base from burning and also to give the okonomiyaki time to cook right through to the middle. We leave it to cook for about five minutes. Using a lid traps the heat and makes it steam a bit which makes it cook more evenly. One of the most common problems is the okonomiyaki still being a bit raw in the middle. You can check this by using a toothpick or bamboo skewer and pacing it at the thickest point. If it comes out clean and it's hot to the touch that should mean it's cooked through. When you're sure it's cooked flip it back over and turn off the heat. While it's still in the pan we're gonna spread half of our homemade sauce over the top and then drizzle it with mayonnaise. It doesn't need to be perfect as we're gonna add more toppings in the end. It's quite fun to make a pattern on the top though. Finally add bonito flakes and aonori seaweed powder. I know okonomiyaki has a lot of specific Japanese ingredients but it's pretty easy to find them online these days. I've got more information about the ingredients on my blog if you want to check it out the link should appear around now. So there you have it delicious homemade okonomiyaki a classic Japanese street food dish. Thanks so much for watching if you enjoyed this video don't forget to like it and if you're interested in Japanese cooking subscribe to my channel. I'm posting new recipes all the time. Thanks again, hope to see you in the next video.