Okonomiyaki

Several years ago, my husband and I spent a wonderful December vacation in Japan with our friend Ben. He took us to an okonomiyaki restaurant in his hometown where we cooked our own vegetable and meat filled pancakes on a griddle at our table. The resulting okonomiyaki were very flavorful, and it was great fun to sit around the table and make our giant pancake dinner. We haven't had okonomiyaki in the United States, but a friend of a friend posted this version online recently. I thought it would be nice to try since I still had cabbage left from an earlier CSA bag, and everyone in my family likes bacon.

They were very similar to the Cabbage Fritters that I have made in the past. While we enjoyed having bacon for dinner, I'm not sure what was missing, but these did not taste like the ones we had in Japan. I do like the idea of a cabbage fritter with more vegetables in the batter.

Okonomiyaki
3 eggs
1 1/2 c flour
1 c water
1/2 t salt
2 T freshly grated ginger
1/2 head cabbage shredded (from CSA)
1 onion (from CSA)
6 mushrooms sliced (or chopped and added to batter)
1/2 lb bacon strips cut in half

Beat eggs and stir in water, flour, salt and ginger. Add scallions and cabbage. Heat a stove top skillet or griddle. Cook one piece of bacon in the pan and remove. Scoop some batter and make a pancake. Place mushrooms and bacon on top of the uncooked pancake. Cook until the bottom of the pancake is browned (3-4 minutes). Flip and cook the second (aka bacon side) until the bacon is browned.