Okonomiyaki for breakfast

All my cabbages are maturing at once, and it won’t be long before it is a race between the cabbage moths getting them and them bolting to seed. So we are eating lots of cabbage. And this is one of the best ways I know. to use lots of cabbage.

This is highly inauthentic Okonomiyaki – please don’t @ me, real Japanese cooks. This is Okonomiyaki featuring what I have in the garden and pantry, what’s in season, what I can easily make for breakfast with the kitchen tools I have. This was a weekend breakfast with friends, but it’s fast enough to work even as a weekday breakfast. And Okonomiyaki are a surprisingly effective way to get even kids interested in cabbage.

The recipe:

It’s the toppings that make it, and really you can make anything you like. Something creamy like mayo or avocado. Something sweet like Kepis Manis or tomato sauce. Something salty and something spicy. Real Japanese Okonomiyaki would have Kewpie mayo, but it’s spring – we have eggs galore – so I made home-made mayo. We have the first flush of summer cherry tomatoes, so I chopped some up. Some chives, an avocado, Kepis Manis (sweet soy sauce) or Oyster sauce, tamarillo sauce (or tomato sauce), and you need something salty – I made broccolini chips and crushed them to make a sprinkle, but you could also use kale chips or finely chopped crispy bacon.

To make the pancakes,

• Finely shred cabbage – you need quite a lot, at least a packed cupful per pancake. It needs to be shredded fine.
• Add salt and pepper and a tablespoon of flour per pancake. You can use white or wholemeal, plain or self raising. You can probably use spelt but I haven’t tried it. Use your hands to toss it through the cabbage so it is all coated with flour.
• Beat an egg per pancake and add to the floury cabbage. Use your hands again to massage it through. You should end up with sticky cabbage that can be squeezed into a ball that will almost, but not quite stick together.
• Heat some oil in a heavy frypan and add the cabbage mix, one pancake’s worth at a time. (If there’s four of you, you might want to have two pans going). Use wet hands or the back of a wet spatula to flatten it into a big, thin pattie.
• Fry for a few minutes until it is brown and crispy on the bottom and the top is more or less set.
• Flip and press down to flatten the other side. I find it easy to turn by putting a plate over it and flipping the pancake onto the plate, then sliding it off the plate back into the pan, but just with an eggflip works with a bit of confidence.
• Cook until the other side is brown and crispy too, then serve hot with toppings.