Cockroaches and cabbage
“Urrrgh” I grunted as I carried the multiple shopping bags back into the house. My mother had been pestering me to try making Okonomiyaki for a few days, and I thought that today, with it’s 39 degree C heat would be the perfect day to stand over a hot stove and fry up one after another of these Japanese pancakes.
Though having tried them before, I’d never actually tried making them so after a bit of googling I settled on a ‘basic’ recipe for the batter and decided to try it with whatever other ingredients I had on hand - after all, it is meant to be “cook what you like, the way you like”. Unfortunately, the lack of cabbage (something every recipe puts down as a necessity for this dish) meant that I needed to go shopping, which led to my current situation with the shopping bags. I dropped them on the kitchen table and started pulling out items of the bags when…
“CRUNCH”
I blinked. My hand wrapped around a 2L bottle of milk, I slowly raised it to see what had made the offending sound from under the moo juice. Hard to distinguish at first, I saw a gooey brown mess inside a wadded up ball of cling wrap (plastic wrap). Fearing what the mess would be, but driven by my curiosity, I held the plastic between two hesitant fingers and lifted it to the light. And then dropped it. And then screamed.
“WHY WAS THERE A COCKROACH WRAPPED IN PLASTIC SITTING ON THE KITCHEN TABLE???”
My brother poked his head out from his room. This act had him written all over it, and I looked at him with daggers in my eyes as I waited for an explanation.
“Oh yeah! I found it sitting on the mirror on the vanity in the entrance so I caught it with the cling wrap because I didn’t want to kill it! Sorry!”
I hrmphed. “Well, at least it’s dead now, I squished it with the milk.”
“Awww man, why’d you kill it?? I wanted to play with it later!!” Martin whined, and with that he disappeared back into his room, leaving me blinking with a look of complete disbelief on my face. HE had caught a cockroach, wrapped it in plastic and left it on the kitchen table ALIVE, and he was mad at ME for accidentally killing it? Where on earth is the logic in that??
Okay, so that story doesn’t have much to do with okonomiyaki, but the process of making the pancakes was uneventful so I thought I’d share the events from before the cooking with you. 
Basic Okonomiyaki Recipe
Ingredients
5 cabbage leaves, main white rib removed
1 brown onion, quartered and thinly sliced
1-2 carrots, grated
4 spring onions (scallions, green onions)
350g plain flour
300mL water
2 large eggs
*Optional: You can add anything to this dish, e.g. mince, chopped up seafood, grated sweet potato, mushrooms etc.
1. Cut the cabbage leaves into sections no wider than 5cm, then slice into strips about 3-4mm thick. Put aside.
2. Cut the spring onion into 5cm lengths, then slice up into thin strips about the same size as the cabbage. Put aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the water, flour and eggs and mix till there are no lumps. You want it to be fairly thick, but still sticky and oozy. Add all the other ingredients and mix thoroughly to make sure that the batter is evenly coating everything in the bowl.
4. Heat up some oil in a frying pan over medium heat, then ladle about 1 cup of the mixture in and spread it out into a rough circular shape no more than 2cm thick. When the underside is nicely browned and crispy, carefully flip over and fry the other side till also done.
5. Plate up and serve warm 
Now, I didn’t have any okonomiyaki sauce handy at home, so I served it with a soy sauce/vinegar mix and some kimchi, and it went down pretty well. Would I make it again…? Possibly, but not regularly as I’m trying to eat healthily and part of that is being careful with the oily foods.
Technorati Tags: okonomiyaki, japanese pancake, japanese cuisine, cockroaches
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Comments
Oh, I think I loved Martin - he’s got to be just too much boy. My boys were given about 50 real life-like cockroachs all sizes by their father. For years it seems they’d put those critters out in the most frightening places.
eww, cockroaches…your okonomiyaki looks great! I usually whiz all my veggies in a food processor. Also like that you added kimchee, I often order it in my okonomiyaki when eating out.
ewwwwwwwww.
‘kay for the lil pancakes? Those look hella-good! Was your mom a happy girl afterwards? =)
Eww for the roach, but ahhh for the pancakes! These look delicious! Hope you are 100% recovered from your cold.
Tanna - Healthy does get in the way…but being healthy most of the time means little treats like these pancakes can be enjoyed guilt-free every now and then I can’t imagine what a terror my brother would be with that many life-like cockroaches…*shudder*what is it about boys and bugs, I ask you! 
Kat - That pretty much sums up how I feel about them! Glad you like my pancake, I was wondering what you’d think, since you live in Japan and see the real thing and all
Lis - Eww is right - squishing crunchy bugs is so unsavoury! Mom was a very happy lass, she devoured three of these things in one sitting!
Jules - Hehehe, cheers hon
Helen - LOL, good call I’m almost there, still a bit clogged in the sinuses but hopefully I’ll be right as rain by the weekend!
Thanks for the recipe, one of my friend is mad about japanese food, and particularly okonomiyaki.
Now I can try and make some for him!
Plume - not to worry I hope he enjoys it!
Ari - LOL, I know, but it’s just one of the hazards of living with my brother
ohhh i love okonomiyaki! do you remember the days of daimaru where there was a little jap cafe next to the daimaru food court? they used to make them on the spot and the hotplate faces the door so that when u walk pass you’d get a whiff of it and be tempted by the sizzling pancakes… well, that was how i discovered it anyway.. LOL
i also wanted to say the cockroach thing sounds like what i did to my brother when he was a little weed LOL… except i wasn’t as nice as your brother, wrapping it up and all. i just picked it up and threw it at him. hehehehe… sorry to kinda wreck the theory and all.. it’s true tho.. the brother and the prank thing except at my household it went both ways 
Where on earth do you find your supply of cockroaches in Melbourne? In Sydney I had such a plentiful supply, they were coming out of my ears. Now I’m reduced to earwigs and spiders. Oh, for the crunch of cockroach underfoot…
Iling - Noo, I can’t remember Daimaru back in those days…but then again, given my atrocious memory (I once had an ex-bf sit me down and recite his phone number over and over for about 5 minutes so that I could memorize it…for some reason he took offence to the fact that I didn’t know it off by heart) it’s no wonder! As for your chucking the cockroach at your brother, I wish! I’m too scared of the ‘insect scuttle’ to do anything like that myself though!
Ed - No idea, but you can have mine if you like! We get a few ‘roaches now and then, but many more huntsmans and dragonflies. The latter I quite like. No earwigs, thank god - those pincers are so evil-lookiing!
I have to add my eww to the chorus…sorry. What is it with some people and doing things like wrapping bugs in clingwrap?
But I will say that your okonomiyaki looks quite delish.
j
Jasmine - I think it’s probably part of the same young boy gene that makes them beat each other up for fun Glad you liked the pancake!
Ivonne - Cheers hon
Peabody - and to think some people keep them as pets! Ewww!
Rachel - Ahh, brothers, don’t we just love ‘em?
I’ve been wanting to make this for ages. Now there is no excuse. I remember Daimaru in Melbourne. I’ve got a nice pair of earrings from there.
i laughed my butt off when i read the part with the roaches! I hate roaches. they’re so mysterious and squishy and can squish their way to any place they want to. I wonder when my little brother would start doing stuffs like these. Right now, he unconciously struts his butt anywhere. He’s like a nadal in the making.
Barbara - Certainly not This is a very basic recipe and I’d even call it fool proof, though you do need the Japanese mayo and bonito flakes to make it authentic
Lene - LOL! Give it a few years and I suspect you may find ‘giftwrapped’ cockroaches too
Ah, savory. Boo healthy is so in the way.
Wow, I love the way the onions & all get to the top and then make all the crisy brown. I wouldn’t be able to resist! Great photo!!