Okonomiyaki  (‘grilled as you like it’) is a Japanese shredded cabbage-based pancake. From its name suggests, okonomiyaki is a flexible dish that made with flour, shredded cabbage, egg, meat/ seafood and topped with variety of condiments like okonomiyaki sauce, Japanese mayonnaise, dried seaweed, and dried bonito flakes. You can add any ingredients come down to what's at hand. Thin strips of pork belly slices is a common choice. Shrimp and octopus are also popular fillings. For myself, adding green onions and pickled red gingers is a must. Some people even adding cheese and rice cakes to boosts the flavour (I never tried it but sounds yumyum).  There are two styles to cook okonomiyaki - "Hiroshima style", where the plain batter pancake is grilled, then topped with the chosen cooked ingredients such as bean sprouts and Yakisoba noodles (egg noodles), or "Osaka style", where all the ingredients are mixed into the batter, then cooked like a frittata. The recipe I am going to introduce is Osaka style, which is the most common in Japan's okonomiyaki bars.

To create this delicious okonomayaki, there are some key ingredients that are necessary to boots the flavour compared to the ones do not include them.

-Okonomiyaki Sauce
-Japanese mayonnaise (slightly different to the Western style mayonnaise)
-Katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes)
-Aonori (dried green seaweed)

*All the ingredients are easy to buy from either Amazon or Japanese/ Asian grocery stores.