Okonomiyaki!

So the partner and I have always been interested in Japan.

The culture, food, anime, manga, and all of the above.

I don't quite remember how we stumbled across this dish, but we've made it twice now and it's so easy! And so yummy!



Okonomiyaki - derived from the word okonomi, meaning "what you like" or "what you want", and yaki meaning "grilled".



Toppings and batters varies in the different areas of Japan. I would probably class the one we cooked as an Osaka style, which is cooked with the batter and other ingredients fried on both sides.



Ok first! Ingrediants!

Now this made 4 decent sized individual okonomiyaki.



1/4-1/2 a cabbage

2 cups of flour

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups of miso

250g bacon

4 small chinese pork sausage

1 bunch of shallots (spring onion)

1 pk udon noodles

Peanut oil



For garnishing:

Benito flakes (dried fish flakes)

Kewpie mayonaise (popular asian used mayonaise, tastes like whole egg mayo, but I'm sure any will work)

Dried shallots

Katsu sauce.



Katsu sauce version:

BBQ Sauce

Worcestershire sauce

Soy Sauce

- Equal quantities of all sauces mixed together.

1tbsp Corn Flour (for thickening only, mix with a bit of the sauce seperately before adding)





Directions!



Fry udon noodles quickly in a pan with a bit of peanut oil.

Seperately, fry bacon off so it's pre-cooked.



Slice cabbage up into long thin strips. Don't worry about it too much, any shape will work but long thinner strips seems to work best.

Slice half of the shallots finely.



Mix miso paste with 1 1/2 cups of warm water til it dissolves.

Put miso into a large bowl. Whisk 2 cups of flour into miso.

Add 2 eggs and whisk in.



Add the cabbage and udon noodles to batter mix.



Slice the bacon and the chinese sausage. Place in a seperately bowl and mix in half of the shallots.



Heat a flat pan with a bit of peanut oil. On about medium-low heat.

Place a quarter of the bacon, sausage and shallot mix in the middle of the pan and shape into a round. Cook for 2-5mins.



Place a large spoon of batter, enough to cover the meat generously - on top of the meat mix and shape into a round. Cook for 5mins.



Flip carefully. Then cook for 5-10mins or until the batter is cooked through.



Remove from pan onto plate. Top with katsu sauce, mayonaise, shallots, benito flakes and dried shallots.



Repeat 3 more times!

Enjoy!

Mexican Stack

I have a tendency to forget about the recipe side when posting and making dishes.

For the most part, I don't follow a specific recipe when I cook.

I've very much a "oh about a handful or 3 of rice for this" kinda cook.

My dishes do come out pretty good though!

Mexican Stack

Ingredients:

500g beef mince (lean works best)

1 medium brown onion

1 jalapeno chilli ( I use a jar of jalapenos. They're not really spicey and I don't use alot so it keeps!)

Fountain Hot Chilli Sauce

Trident Sweet Chilli Sauce

1 teaspoon crushed red chilli

3 teaspoons crushed garlic or garlic granules

1 small can or container of tomato paste

1 medium zucchini sliced long and thin

1 large carrot sliced long and thin

1 medium capsicum sliced long and thin (I've tried it with both red and yellow so far!)

English spinach or baby spinach, just a small handful.

2-3 teaspoons ground cumin seeds

4-6 regular tortillas

250g cheese (monzerella work's well. But any type will do)

Regular spring-form pan.

Frypan

Method:

Dice onion and brown off in frypan.

Once onion is ready, add beef mince and cook through.

While mince is cooking, add jalapeno, crushed red chilli, ground cumin and garlic to the pan.

Put a tortilla on the bottom of the spring form pan. You may need to gently fold the edges into each other to sit nicely up the sides.

Spread rougly a teaspoon of tomato paste onto the tortilla kind of like you were spreading it onto a pizza. Then spread a teaspoon of hot chilli sauce and sweet chilli sauce on the base as well.

Spoon enough mince to evenly cover the tortilla in the spring-form pan.

Sprinkle a bit of cheese on top. Not too much though, you don't want it too cheesey between the layers, it will cause the tortilla to be soggy.

Place another tortilla on top. Repeat the sauce process from before.

Cover the surface evenly with the spinach leaves. Use roughly half of the chopped up capsicum, zucchini and carrot and arrange on top of the spinach for a level surface.

Sprinkle a bit of cheese again, then place another tortilla on top.

Repeat sauce process and cover with the mince and sprinkle with cheese.

Cover with a tortilla.

For the final layer, I cover with the sauce.

Then I place the vegies for presentation purposes. Sprinkle more cheese on top.

Place in oven at roughly 190 degrees. Probably 180 for most normal ovens though!

Roughly half an hour to 40mins. This will depend on your oven. If your using a fan-forced oven the timing will vary from my own.

Basically, once the cheese on top is nicely melted, maybe slightly brown it's done.

Keep an eye on the edges of the tortilla sticking out the top, these will burn up if the oven is too high for too long.