Cabbage Fritters (Okonomiyaki)


Hello everyone, Jess here.  Happy Sunday to you!  As we do here every Sunday at CSA365, it’s time to share what we did for our weekly family dinner with the Andersons and the Bucks.  This week was my turn, and I decided to use my cabbage as the featured ingredient for the week.  

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I tried this recipe at the suggestion of a friend and fellow mother who spend several years living in Japan. Okonomiyaki, from what I understand, translates to “as you like it”.  It’s usually made with cabbage as the main base, and most of the other ingredients involved are negotiable.  Hence, it’s a very flexible dish (and those who read this blog know how much I appreciate flexibility when it comes to cooking).  Okoniyaki has an omelet latke, or fritter feel to it, and the toppings can range anywhere from sweet to savory. 

I pulled heavily from the ingredients I read about at Just One Cookbook, and tweaked them to make it my own.  I did not have any dashi or Nanaimo handy, so I tried omitting them.  We still enjoyed the results.  If you have a cabbage hanging around and are looking for a new use, this may be worth a try!  

  • 1 large cabbage head
  • 1 cup (120 g) all-purpose flour
  • ¼ tsp. salt
  • ¼ tsp. sugar
  • ¼ tsp. baking powder
  • ½ cup panko 
  • 6 large eggs

For Okonomiyaki sauce (you can find this at Asian markets, or make your own.  Thanks again to Just One Cookbook for this help!)

  • 1 ½ Tbsp. sugar
  • 2 Tbsp. oyster sauce
  • 4 Tbsp. ketchup
  • 3 ½ Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

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First, chop or thinly shred your cabbage (a fine chop will give your pancake a more even cook, but the shreds are nice too).  Set aside.  

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Mix your dry ingredients together (salt through panko) before mixing into the cabbage.  Lightly beat your eggs in a separate bowl before mixing into the cabbage.  Things will be getting sticky!

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Heat vegetable oil over medium heat. Once up to temperature, place your batter into the skillet or griddle in small round pancakes.  

imageCook about 5 minutes per side before draining on a paper towel lined plate.  

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You can see here the different test runs as I experimented with this recipe.  The beautiful golden brown one involved more vegetable oil than the other three.  I cooked some with butter (Sarah’s favorite) some with vegetable oil (standard), and some with coconut oil (Sarah said this made them taste like Girl Scout cookies).  The beautiful thing about a lot of cabbage, is you have room to try different versions and go with what works for you!

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Here is the final product, dressed with an Okonmiyaki Sauce and mayonnaise.  You can dress it with pretty much anything from what I can tell.  Bacon, anyone?

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Please note the delicious slow cooker beef short rib as well!  Look at that fork tender lovin’!

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My older son Ben wanted to help with dinner tonight, so for dessert we made up an apple upside down something or other.  

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We started by slicing the apples with our mandolin slicer (as it was already handy from shredding the cabbage).  

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We punched out the centers of the slices and Ben lined them in the bottom of our buttered springform pan.

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Next, we added cinnamon, nutmeg, thin slices of butter, and a drizzle of maple syrup on top of the slices.  We followed that up with some crumbled graham crackers combined with melted butter before baking it at 375 for a spell (I didn’t time it).

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Here’s what it looked like after flipping it over.

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Another fun and tasty experiment.  Life is good!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend and we’ll see you here tomorrow for the 15th Springdell Summer CSA Pickup of the season!

 

 

 

 


About Jess

Jess Anderson is the creator of CSA|365 and is passionate about the local food movement. A long time member of Springdell and a busy mother of two, Jess loves keeping her family fed by honest local food.