Okonomiyaki, Osaka Mixed Style (関西風お好み焼き)

// SUPPLY LIST

// OPERATIONS

1. 1 Whisk the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together in a large bowl, then whisk in the fridge-cold dashi in three additions until the batter is completely smooth and roughly the thickness of double cream, with no dry pockets clinging to the side of the bowl. Osaka households almost universally use instant dashi here rather than making a pot of ichiban dashi for a weeknight pancake, and it is a fair swap: 1 tsp hondashi granules dissolved in 240 ml cold water. The dashi must be cold, never warm or freshly made and still hot, because warm liquid starts the starch swelling early and gives you a rubbery, bready cake.
2. 2 Grate the 120 g of peeled nagaimo on a fine ceramic oroshigane into a white foam, then whisk it into the batter until the mixture looks aerated and faintly stringy and falls off the whisk in a slow, elastic ribbon. Hold the yam in a folded piece of kitchen paper while you grate: the raw sap makes most people's hands itch within a minute, and rinsing with water acidulated with a splash of vinegar settles it. Do not skip the nagaimo and do not substitute potato or an extra egg for it, because it is the one ingredient that makes the interior soufflé-soft rather than dense, and its absence is exactly what makes bad home okonomiyaki taste like a savoury flapjack.
3. 3 Cover the bowl and refrigerate the batter for at least 1 hour and up to 12 hours, but no longer, since the baking powder is already wet and its lift fades overnight. The rest hydrates the flour fully and relaxes the gluten you developed while whisking, which is the difference between a cake that rises tenderly around the cabbage and one that sets tight and chewy. It is ready when it has thickened very slightly and pours smooth and glossy with no grainy drag against the side of the bowl.
4. 4 While the batter rests, cut the cabbage by hand with a sharp knife into 4-5 mm shreds, then cut across the pile so no piece is longer than 3-4 cm, and hold it loose and uncovered in the fridge. Do not use a food processor, mandoline or box grater and do not salt it in advance: bruised or salted cabbage bleeds water within minutes and you will get a wet, flat, grey-green pancake that will not crisp at any temperature. Cut properly it should look dry and pale, spring back when squeezed, and rustle when you lift a handful.
5. 5 Set out everything else within arm's reach of the hob before you cook: the spring onions, tenkasu, beni shoga, eggs, four sets of 3-4 pork belly slices, the sauce, mayonnaise, aonori and katsuobushi, plus four warmed plates, two metal turners and a bamboo skewer. Okonomiyaki is cooked, dressed and eaten one cake at a time and you cannot leave the pan once a cake is on it, so anything you have to hunt for mid-cook is a cake lost.
6. 6 Mix one portion only: in a medium bowl combine a quarter of the rested batter (about 140 g), 150 g of the cabbage, 15 g spring onion, 5 g tenkasu, 7-8 g beni shoga and 1 egg. Fold with chopsticks or a spatula using a lifting-and-cutting motion, 20-25 strokes over about 30 seconds, stopping the moment every shred is glossed with batter and no loose egg remains. Never mix all four portions at once and never beat it: shearing the shreds and the salt in the batter pull water out of the cabbage, and a bowl that looked right will be soup within ten minutes.
7. 7 Heat a 24-26 cm heavy cast-iron or carbon-steel frying pan, or an electric teppan, over medium heat for 4-5 minutes until the surface reaches 180°C/350°F, then add 1.5 tsp of the oil and wipe it over the base with kitchen paper. Test it with a drop of batter: it should sizzle quietly and set matte in about 3 seconds without browning instantly. Too hot and the crust blackens while the cabbage in the middle is still raw and squeaky; too cool and the cake steams pale and never develops the lacy underside.
8. 8 Tip the portion into the centre and use the back of a turner only to nudge it into a domed round 15-16 cm across and 2.5-3 cm thick, leaving the edge loose and craggy rather than smoothing it. Lay 3-4 slices of pork belly flat over the top, overlapping slightly so they knit together and will not slide off in the flip, and cook undisturbed for 4 minutes, until the rim looks set and dull rather than glossy and a lifted edge shows a deep golden, lace-patterned underside.
9. 9 Slide one turner all the way under from the near side, steady the top with the second turner, and flip in one committed movement away from you so the pork lands flat against the pan; a hesitant half-flip is what breaks these cakes. Tuck any escaped cabbage back under the edge with the tip of the turner. Do not press down on the cake at any point, now or later, because pressing forces out the steam that is lifting the crumb and leaves you with a dense, greasy disc.
10. 10 Turn the heat to medium-low, cover with a lid or a dome of foil and cook 5 minutes to steam the 150 g of cabbage through; Osaka shops manage this on an open teppan simply by cooking longer, but a lid is the reliable way on a domestic hob. Uncover, bring the heat back to medium and cook a further 2 minutes still pork-side down, until the fat has run, the slices are lacquered and crisp at their edges and the moisture the lid trapped has dried off — this is the only window in which the pork actually crisps, so do not turn it early. Flip once more so the pork sits uppermost, cook a final 1 minute to dry the top so the sauce will grip, giving about 12 minutes on the pan in total; it is done when a bamboo skewer held in the centre for 5 seconds comes out clean of raw batter and feels hot against the back of your hand.
11. 11 Slide the cake onto a warmed plate and let it stand for 1 minute before dressing, so the interior finishes setting and will not tear when you cut it. Wipe the pan, re-oil it with another 1.5 tsp, let it come back up to 180°C/350°F, and cook the remaining three the same way, mixing each portion only once its pan is hot; a portion mixed and left waiting will weep and spread instead of doming.
12. 12 Brush 1.5 tbsp okonomi sauce evenly over the pork side of the rested cake, right to the edge; bottled Otafuku is what Osaka households buy and there is no reason to apologise for it, though at a push you can whisk 4 tbsp Worcestershire sauce with 2 tbsp ketchup, 2 tsp oyster sauce and 2 tsp sugar to make roughly the 6 tbsp the four cakes need. Pipe or drizzle 1 tbsp Japanese mayonnaise in parallel lines across the sauce, then drag the tip of a chopstick through them at right angles, alternating direction, to feather it into a lattice. Scatter 1/2 tsp aonori, then a loose handful (2-3 g) of katsuobushi last, so the rising heat curls the shavings and sets them moving.
13. 13 Serve each cake the moment it is dressed rather than lining up all four, cutting it at the table into six wedges with the edge of a turner, and eat it hot with cold beer, or the way an Osaka lunch counter would send it out, with a bowl of rice and miso soup alongside. Okonomiyaki does not hold: within 4-5 minutes the sauce softens the crust and the cabbage sweat catches up with it, so cook, dress and eat one at a time and let the cook eat last.

// CLASSIFICATIONS