Japan - easy...

I love Japanese food. I live in the South. The two don't really mesh so well. I'm sure that somewhere in this town is a place where I can buy really good Asian ingredients, but so far when I look I find aisles of Latino food and barbecue sauce.

My husband loves Japanese food. He ate it for two years straight and he's the one to blame for my love of it. He got me hooked on sushi, tempura, sticky rice and this recipe: Okonomiyaki.

Rhymes with teriyaki. Only different.

I think it's my husbands favorite dish. Maybe. It's technically a Japanese pancake. But without sweet syrup, or sugar, or fruit, or cream....but you do make it just like a pancake. But you do put sauce on it.

Photo courtesy of resshin.com because I really didn't feel like taking pictures. Of course, mine had bacon on top...

mmmmm, bacon

It's super easy to make and my kids love it. Yes, I know they also like liver, but that doesn't compare and this recipe has 0 (zero) liver in it. Plus my husband loves this and hates liver, so there.

OKONOMIYAKI

12 oz sliced bacon

1 1/3 cups water

4 eggs

3 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 medium head cabbage, sliced

1 tbsp. ground ginger

1 tbsp. garlic salt

tonkatsu sauce (recipe follows)

1. In a large bowl, stir the water and eggs together. Gradually stir in the flour, salt, ginger and garlic salt. Add the flour and cabbage and stir until all ingredients are incorporated. Set aside.

2. Fry bacon in a large skillet until slightly crispy. I used my plug in skillet and it worked great. Set aside on paper towels.

3. In /on your skillet over medium heat, pour a scoop of batter and flatten out like a pancake. Fry for about 5 minutes or until the edges are dry, flip and cook on other side, adding bacon to the already cooked side. Once that side is cooked, flip over one more time to set the bacon, then remove from skillet.

4. Drizzle with Tonkatsu sauce and serve. I made 9 'cakes' out of this recipe, I make them smaller than you would get at a restaurant.

Tonkatsu sauce

1/4 cup worchestershire sauce

1/4 cup ketchup

2 tbsp. soy sauce

Mix together and serve.

There are a lot of recipes for Tonkatsu sauce out there, this one is our favorite.