Okonomiyaki (Japanese Savoury Pancake)

Another inspiration from my amazing Flavour Thesaurus, with guidance from one of my favourite food blogs and a helpful Japanese cooking info page. This time I was reading the underwhelming-sounding 'cabbage and egg' section. Turns out the Japanese have a long tradition of making these gorgeous savoury pancakes with a range of different ingredients, but almost-always including shredded cabbage as the base. And since cabbage was on my list of 'cheap veg at the market this week', I have a whole head to use up. I made up the money saved buying the cabbage by buying beautiful katsuobushi, the dried bonito flakes that 'dance' in the convection currents generated by the hot pancake. I also made my own okonomiyaki sauce, which meant I had to buy ketchup for the first time in my life. Oh well - maybe when winter rolls around I'll deep-fry some potato chips. Or, more likely, I'll just make these again, because they were AMAZING! Even easier to flip than Korean pancakes, less fiddly than fried veggie fritters, and absolutely divine in flavour. I think it's worth putting in the extra effort to make the sauce, and track down the katsuobushi and wakame (dried seaweed).

Ingredients

What is so exciting about this seaweed??

For the pancake: 

• 1/4 white/green cabbage
• 1 carrot
• 2 spring onions
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup room-temperature dashi stock (substitute seafood stock, or vegetable stock, or even water)
• 1 cup plain flour

For the toppings:

• 2tbsp ketchup (tomato sauce)
• 2tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 50g katsuobushi (fine bonito flakes)
• a small handful of wakame (dried seaweed)

Japanese pancake on the barbie.
Now that's what I call fusion food :)

Shred the cabbage, grate the carrot and finely slice the spring onions. Combine with the egg, stock and flour in a large mixing bowl. Get a bbq hot plate nice and hot and brush generously with oil. When you can see it start to shimmer, plop the mixture onto the hotplate and push down and smooth out to make a pancake or two (how many depends on your confidence in your ability to flip them!). Close the lid and bbq for 5-10 minutes, until crisp and golden on the bottom, and cooked through enough not to fall apart when you lift the edges with a spatula. Flip onto the other side and cook for a further 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and sugar in a small bowl, to make the okonomiyaki sauce. Put the mayonnaise in a small plastic bag with the corner cut off, or piping bag, if it's not in a squeezy bottle already. When the pancake is nearly done, turn off the heat and brush the top surface with the okonomiyaki sauce. Pipe on the mayonnaise in long lines, or whatever pattern you like. Tip on the katsuobushi and scatter with a handful of wakame. Serve hot off the grill, with the bonito flakes dancing to their tasty song :)

Baked Stuffed Cabbage Parcels

When I was in Cambridge last week, a friend gave me this copy of Delia's 'Frugal Food'. It's interesting enough, especially if you're short on 70s style things to do with lentils and cabbage. Since we'd bought an enormous Savoy for just a dollar, and I had the glorious freedom of an entire day with nothing to do but go for a long walk and cook, it seemed like a good time to figure out something fun and frugal to do. I settled on the 'baked stuffed cabbage parcels'. They really were rather good! Although I did bulk out and spice up the recipe a bit. The photo is taken before I pour over the requisite 400g tin of chopped tomatoes; personally I think it'd be nicer with the topping I describe below.

Ingredients:

• a large head of Savoy or green cabbage
• 75g white rice
• a large white onion
• 400g beef or lamb mince
• three cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• a large handful of parsley, well-washed and finely chopped
• a generous handful of sultanas
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• a 400g tin of white (haricot or borlotti) beans (chick peas might work too)
• a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried red chillis
• a slice or two of bread, or a handful of sunflower seeds

Get a really huge saucepan that you can put the whole cabbage head inside completely. Practice taking it out again with a couple of big spoons or some good strong tongs. When you're happy that you have a good saucepan and a way of getting a hot cabbage head back out again, fill it up with boiling water and submerge the cabbage, preferably stalk-side-up. (I don't know how Delia stops it flipping; mine always went straight over no matter what I did!) Bring back to a boil and simmer for 8 minutes, then remove and drain. (I used the water from this to cook the pasta for another meal, but maybe you could put your feet in it if you're having a particularly cold winter and don't want to let it go to waste? I've no idea.)

Once the cabbage is cool enough to handle, get a nice sharp knife and a big bowl, and work your way around the cabbage, cutting off the leaves as you go. Once the leaves go yellow, you can maybe get three or four, before they become too small to be useful for this recipe. At that stage the texture should be quite crisply blanched, so it would work well cooled and used later in a salad, or served warm straight away with some butter. But it's not useful for the rest of this recipe so find somewhere to put it.

Set the rice cooking in a 2:1 water:rice ratio over a gentle heat. Finely chop and fry the onion for a few minutes, then add the mince and crush in the garlic. Fry for a couple more minutes, then add the cinnamon, thyme, parsley, sultanas, beans, tomato puree, salt and cooked rice. Stir well to combine and turn off the heat.

Put a cabbage leaf on a board or plate so that it curves upward, and slice about three inches of the thick stem away; eat or discard. If you want to make finger-food-sized parcels, slice the entire stem away, and use half-leaves to wrap 3/4--1 1/2 tbsp of mixture; otherwise wrap up 1 1/2--3 tbsp mixture depending on the size of the leaf. You should overlap the leaves enough that the mixture isn't bursting out. Place in a large roasting dish with the foldy bits at the bottom.

Meanwhile, (perhaps your sous-chef can help), heat the tin of chopped tomatoes with the oregano and chilli. Puree with a hand-blender into a fine sauce. (A good passatta will do equally well here.) Pour the tomato sauce over the tray of parcels, making sure to coat all of the leaves (they will go black wherever not covered by tomatoes). Bake for an hour, until the leaves are very tender and the sauce has reduced to a fine covering. Blend the bread into fine breadcrumbs, toss with a little olive oil; cover the tomato sauce and bake for a further ten minutes until crisp. Alternatively, serve with some toasted sunflower seeds.

Beetroot and Feta on Cabbage & Pesto Pasta

This isn't going to inspire anyone to new heights of cooking, but it did come out rather prettily. I simmered a couple of peeled, cubed beetroot, toasted some feta and rosemary, and served over some al dente pasta stirred through with blanched, shredded Savoy and a very good tub of pesto from the deli. A nubbly conglomerate of odds and ends from the fridge.

Farfalle with Savoy and Pumpkin

Another wonderful vegetable that is coming into season is the Savoy cabbage. Not the sad pale white cabbage that falls to sock-smelling pieces as soon as it is cooked, but the delicious bouncy dark leaves that can be plunged into boiling water, or quickly fried, and still retain their savoury bite and nutty aroma. It also lasts forever, even out of the fridge... and it takes a long time to eat a whole head! Tonight's recipe was borrowed from Jamie Oliver, and then edited by the SO into his own version.

Ingredients:

• a quarter of a pumpkin
• a few rashers of bacon
• 1 clove of garlic
• a handful of thyme, leaves stripped
• 5-6 large leaves of Savoy cabbage
• 250g farfalle or other pasta
• a big chunk of Parmesan

Cube the pumpkin and roast for 30-40 minutes, until soft and golden. Shred the cabbage into fine strips. Slice the bacon thinly and fry for a few minutes until cooked; add the garlic and thyme, cook for a further minute, then add the shredded cabbage; cover and cook for five minutes, shaking or stirring every so often to prevent it sticking. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to its instructions, or until al dente. When the cabbage is tender (but not overcooked!) and the pasta is done, drain the latter and serve topped with the former, the pumpkin, grated Parmesan, black pepper and (as Jamie would have it) a glug of very nice olive oil.

Chestnuts and Savoy in Cream and Juniper

I've been thinking about making something like this since we went shopping at the weekend, and tonight all the parts collapsed together to make a fantastic scrobbly combination of tastes and textures. It's an unholy union of a Nigel Slater cabbage recipe with a sprouts dish we make at Christmas. We had to use dried chestnuts, rehydrated by soaking overnight and then boiled for 45 minutes until cooked, but in the UK I used to easily find tinned or vacuum-packed chestnuts. Juniper berries were also a bit of a pain to track down over here, but eventually I found them in our local 'combined market' - a sort of cheap warehouse where the main floor sells veg and staples, and the side stands include a deli and a butcher. Neither are substitutable, I'm afraid!

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp juniper berries
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 1/4 large Savoy or other very good winter cabbage
• 300g peeled, cooked chestnuts, broken up into large pieces
• 75g coppa or your favourite Italian smoked meat
• 100ml double cream
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp salt (to taste)

Crush the juniper berries and peppercorns in a mortar and pestle until they are a mulch. Wash the cabbage and thinly slice into long strips. Blanch in boiling water for just one minute, then immediately drain. In the pan that you cooked the cabbage, gently fry the juniper berry and peppercorn mulch in a little olive oil until fragrant. Return the cabbage to the pan, along with the chestnuts, coppa, cream, honey and salt. Warm through and immediately turn off the heat. Serve over hot mashed potatoes.

Winter Slaw with Rare Roast Lamb and Red Pepper Quinoa

Butchers here tend to offer a good selection of marinaded and prepared meats which are ready to roast, fry or bbq. We picked up a rolled loin of lamb with a layer of spices and a small amount of spiced stuffing. It was quite delicious - roasted for 50 minutes at 200 C until golden on the outside and still pink on the inside, then rested for 10 minutes before being sliced thinly. I took the opportunity of the umami flavours spicy, smoky meat  to make a light, crunchy slaw, based on the advice in Nigel Slater's Tender. Carbs came in the form of some seasoned quinoa stirred through with roast peppers left over from a previous meal.

Ingredients:

• one small carrot or half a large
• one quarter of a white cabbage
• a stick of celery, or a generous handful of its leaves
• a small handful of flat-leaf parsley or dill
• 4 tbsp natural yoghurt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• a generous handful of green pumpkin seeds

Peel the carrot but leave the end on, then grate it into long thin shreds. Finely shred the cabbage and thinly slice the celery (or its leaves). Finely chop the herbs. Combine the yoghurt, olive oil and lemon juice together, and season well, then stir through the vegetables. Toast the pumpkin seeds either in an oven at 200C for 5-6 minutes, or by dry-frying them over a medium heat in a non-stick frying pan. Serve the slaw with pumpkin seeds scattered over.

Aubergine and Peanut Stir-Fry

Another one of those recipes brought on by an excessive craving for certain flavours. This time: meltingly soft aubergines, crunchy peanuts, and a big pile of egg noodles - that last probably brought on by the quick cycle ride and run I went for, after work. The meal was roughly inspired by this recipe, but I made a few substitutions and didn't even try griddling the baby aubergines - it takes AGES compared to popping them in the oven and going out. Oh, and this is way better than it looks - sorry the photo isn't super-inspiring, but the ready-prepared tofu just isn't that attractive. Tasty, though.

Ingredients:

• 4-5 baby aubergines, or one large aubergine
• 1/2 tsp Chinese 5-spice or ground coriander
• vegetable oil
• half a head of Chinese cabbage
• three spring onions
• thin egg noodles (we used three bundles, two is enough if you're not super-hungry)
• 3 tbsp peanut butter
• juice of one orange
• juice of one lime
• 3 tbsp cooking rice wine or sake
• soy sauce
• 200g prepared flavoured tofu (optional)

Preheat the oven to 200C. Chop the aubergine(s) into bite-size pieces. Put in a baking dish and toss with the ground spice and enough oil to lightly coat - about 2 tbsp. Roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until golden brown and tender.

Slice the cabbage diagonally, and finely chop the spring onions. Soak the egg noodles in boiling water straight from the kettle, then drain. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, adding enough soy sauce for your preferred degree of saltiness. Stir-fry the cabbage and spring onions for two minutes, then add the cooked aubergine, tofu, and noodles. Pour the sauce over the noodles- adding the sauce on top of the noodles ensures they will all be coated, and some sauce will sink down to the bottom and go on the vegetables. Turn off the heat, mix together as best you can, and serve.

Cabbage with Juniper Cream

Another Nigel Slater tweak, this time a side turned into a main course. This is absolutely delicious and I encourage you to try it, even if you're not usually a fan of cabbage. The key is to cook the cabbage as minimally as possible, so that it retains bite and flavour, rather than degenerating into a sock-smelling mess. And use a big hearty cabbage like Savoy, not an insipid white ball from the supermarket. This is the vegetarian version, but you could easily snip in some grilled bacon or serve with a seared duck or pigeon breast.

Ingredients:

• 350g cabbage
• 2 tsp black peppercorns
• 2 tsp juniper berries
• a thick slice of butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 200ml crème fraîche or double cream

Set off any brown rice or other accompaniment cooking; the cabbage takes less than 10 minutes to prepare. Separate and wash the leaves of the cabbage, pile them on top of each other, then slice into finger-width slices with a big, sharp knife. Bring a large pan of water to a boil, salt it lightly, then cook the cabbage for 2-3 minutes; essentially as soon as the water is back to a rolling boil, you should be testing the stems for done-ness. Drain in a colander and return the pan to a low heat.

Pound the peppercorns in a mortar and pestle, then drop in the juniper berries and crush them lightly. Drop the slice of butter into the warm pan, allow it to melt, then drop in the spices and sautee them for a couple of minutes, until fragrant. Pour in the salt and cream, stir around so it doesn't separate, and heat through. Return the cabbage to the pan and bring everything back to piping hot, then immediately serve. Tonight we toasted pumpkin seeds to top and served with plain fluffy mashed potato.