“I love getting creative with the food I grow, using every part of the plant—whole plant cooking. Combining what I’ve learned in kitchens during my career with farming opened up my world and my palette. I fell in love with okonomiyaki during my Japan trips and took the traditional recipe and added a farmy, seed to plate spin on it using local Pacific Northwest produce. I make it every summer for my friends. ”
Photos and videography by Shawn Linehan.
Recipe by Stacey Givens
Born in Redondo Beach, CA in 1982
Lives in Portland, OR
Profession: Chef & farmer at The Side Yard Farm & Kitchen
Leisure: Friends/Being in nature/Traveling with my dog Benny
Word of the day: Chill
Childhood cuisine: Mama's Greek food & Dad's southern BBQ
Lola’s Notes:
A million (or, specifically, four) years ago, I traveled to Japan with Stacey on a group trip she had been organizing annually to bring Portland farmers, chefs, and food makers together with Japanese farmers and food artisans for conversations and collaborative meals. On this trip, for the first time, I was surrounded (for two weeks!) by other business owners my own age who held values and intentions similar to my own. It shook me in the way you sometimes need to be shaken to find yourself underneath a hard shell you didn’t realize you’d created. I am forever indebted to Stacey for this experience. But one of the other real benefits of this trip and our ongoing friendship has been eating Stacey’s food! She is ridiculously talented! It’s beyond! We have dubbed her style Whole Plant Cooking because she experiences the full life cycle of plants on the farm and let’s her curiosity guide her—flowers, roots, stalks, and leaves others might discard become central to her palate.
Stacey has her own excellent youtube channel, Seed Plate Eat, and I was honored to join her for an episode featuring her take on one of my all-time favorite foods: okonomiyaki. You can watch the video above and skip the recipe below (they are the same!) This recipe features many things growing on Stacey’s farm—and also available at farmers markets—in late August and September including cabbage, shiso, nasturtiums, and ground cherries. Her ground cherry sauce is a bit of a pain in the butt but it’s totally worth it! But you can just as easily use classic okonomiyaki sauce or a rogue homemade version of equal parts ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and soy sauce, simmered briefly.
Makes 6 to 8 servings or 2 large okonomiyaki pancakes
Batter:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
2 cups water
Filling and Cooking:
4 cups thinly shredded green cabbage
1 cup thinly sliced green onions (reserve some for the top)
Several leaves thinly sliced shiso (optional)
2 tablespoons pickled ginger
1 tablespoon minced or grated fresh ginger
4 tablespoons neutral oil
1 package (1 lb) Umi Organic yakisoba stir-fry noodles
Toppings:
Ground cherry sauce (see recipe below) or okonomiyaki sauce
Kewpie mayonnaise in a squeeze bottle
Fried nasturtium leaves (or katsuobushi aka bonito flakes)
Dried nasturtium flowers (optional - you could also use other crunchy things like fried shallots)
Directions:
For the batter, in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, potato starch, baking powder, sugar and salt to combine. Add the eggs and whisk until smooth. Add the water a little at a time and whisk until the batter is loose and reminiscent of pancake batter.
Add the cabbage, green onions., optional sliced shiso, and pickled and grated ginger and stir to combine.
Heat a large skillet (preferably nonstick or a well-seasoned fry pan) over medium heat. Add oil and heat until it shimmers. Add half the cabbage batter and press down to 1/2 to 3/4 inch thickness. Press a handful of the yakisoba noodles into the top of the batter until you have covered the surface in a thin layer of noodles. Make sure the noodles are firmly pressed into the batter so they’ll stay put when we flip the pancake. Cover the pan with a lid and cook approximately 5 minutes. Check periodically to make sure the bottom isn’t burning. If it’s getting too dark, turn down the heat and continue.
Once the bottom is a lovely golden color, flip your pancake. You can be brave and try to flip it within the pan (see Stacey’s example in the video!), or you can place a plate over the top, turn the skillet upside down to release the okonomiyaki, return the empty skillet to the heat, and slide it back into the pan with the uncooked side of the pancake facing down. Cover once more with a lid and continue to cook for 5 minutes until the second side is also brown and the pancake is cooked throughout. You can use a knife to test the pancake (don’t worry, you’ll cover up any cuts with the garnishes.) If the knife comes out smoothly, it’s done.
Flip your cooked okonomiyaki onto a cutting board or platter. Drizzle ground cherry or okonomiyaki sauce over the top, squeeze a thin line of kewpie mayo back and forth across the pancake, and then scatter green onions and any other toppings (like fried nasturtium leaves and dried nasturtium flowers) across the top. Serve!
Sweet n’ Sour Ground Cherry Sauce for Okonomiyaki
By Chef Stacey Givens of the Side Yard Farm
This sauce is delicious drizzled on top of okonomiyaki with Kewpie mayo and fried n’ salted nasturtium leaves. Check out your local farmers markets in August and September for ground cherries. They are in the nightshade family, they come in cute little husks, and they taste like a sweet pineapple Flintstone vitamin.
Makes 1 cup sauce
1 tablespoon neutral oil
1⁄2 yellow onion or 1 large shallot, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cups ground cherries, husks removed
2 tablespoons sugar
Salt to taste
1⁄4 cup rice vinegar
Directions:
In a sauce pot, heat your oil. Add your onions and garlic and cook down for 5 minutes. Add ground cherries, salt and sugar. Keep heat on medium. The ground cherries will begin to sweat out their liquid and they will burst. Stir occasionally. Bring the heat down to a simmer. Add rice vinegar. Let the mixture reduce for 15 to 20 minutes until it coats the back of a spoon. Give it a taste, add more salt or sugar if needed. Pour the hot liquid into a blender or use a hand blender to puree until smooth. Place in a squeeze bottle. You are now ready to make okonomiyaki!
