Sweet Miso Eggplant & Shiitake Okonomiyaki

(serves 2)

My first memory of this dish was a number of years ago when my brother was going through some kind of 'iron chef, jap-inspired' phase and our kitchen had turned into a flour-y mess as he was 'experimenting'. Clearly, some things run in the family. He did end up making some pretty good okonomiyaki, but i think what i remember most was having to clean up after *sigh*

Anyhow, this is a pretty common Japanese dish that i hadn't gotten around to trying out yet, so i thought i'd do a bit of experimenting for myself (but much less messy). My net-based research tells me that "okonomi" means whatever you like, and "yaki" means grilled. The main idea is that it's a cabbage-based pancake with a brown sauce and mayo topping, there are a few different styles, and every region has their own fillings etc. There's the Hiroshima-style where there's a 'pancake' base and a savoury top that you combine together, or the Osaka-style, where all the ingredients are mixed in together and then pan-fried. 

Of course, being the enthusiastic research, i had to try both and have concluded that a sort of mix is probably the best, so you have flavour throughout but also have the top layer with concentrated flavour. Trying to come up with a vegetarian version, I decided to go with a sweet miso eggplant so i could combine a couple of my fave Jap dishes!

Prep time: 30 min
Cooking time: 10-15 min

Ingredients:
1 C flour
2/3 C stock or water (i used the stock from soaking shiitake mushrooms)
2 eggs
4 C chinese cabbage
1 yellow capsicum (optional)
2 stalks green shallots
1/2 eggplant
3-4 shiitake mushrooms (soaked overnight if dried)

Sweet miso sauce:
1 T miso paste
1 T sugar
2 T mirin
1/2 T sesame oil

Topping:
Brown sauce
Jap mayo
Bonito flakes
Dried seaweed


Method:
1. Finely chop the chinese cabbage, capsicum and eggplant into thin slices.
2. Make the miso paste in a small pan/pot by combining the miso paste, sugar and mirin on low heat until dissolved, then add in the sesame oil.
3. Heat a large (30cm) pan with 1/2 T oil, then brown the shiitake mushrooms for 1-2 minutes with a sprinkle of salt. Remove from the pan.
4. Heat the pan with 1/2 T oil, then add the eggplant in with a sprinkle of salt, and fry for 2 minutes until it softens. Add the shiitake mushrooms back in and add the miso paste mixture and stir through and cook for 1-2 minutes.
5. Whisk the flour and stock together until smooth.
6. Add the eggs, cabbage and half the green shallots in. 
7. Mix in half the cooked eggplant and mushrooms with the rest of the dough mixture.

8. Clean the pan and heat again with 1/2 T oil. Pour in half the batter (try to shape it like a circle!) and cook for 3-4 minutes on one side, or until brown.
9. Add 1/2 of the remaining eggplant mix on top of the pancake, flatten it into the dough, then flip the pancake and cook for another 4-5 minutes on medium heat.
NB. This may be tricky, so you want to make sure the dough is fairly cooked through and the eggplant is squashed in before flipping. 
You also want to make sure that the eggplant mix doesn't burn on the bottom, just reduce the heat and cook for a bit longer.
10. To remove, you can put the plate on top of the okonomiyaki and just turn the pan over so the eggplant side is up. 
11. Repeat to cook the 2nd pancake
12. To serve, drizzle with brown sauce and jap mayo - generally this is done in a lattice form. Then sprinkle some seaweed strips and bonito flakes on top!