Griddled Cabbage and Shrimp Breakfast Pancakes with Ginger and Sesame
Shredded cabbage, bok choy, and chopped shrimp bound with egg and ground flaxseed, griddled into thin cakes with crisp lacy edges, finished with toasted sesame, scallion, and lime.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
This started as a shortcut version of okonomiyaki, the cabbage pancake sold from griddles all over Osaka, and it has become the breakfast I make when there is half a cabbage rolling around the crisper drawer. There is no flour in it. Egg and ground flaxseed do the binding, which means the cakes taste like cabbage and shrimp rather than batter, and they hold together on a spatula as long as you press them thin. Start to finish it is under half an hour, most of that spent shredding, and it makes eight pancakes, which is two apiece with nothing left over to fight about.
What you want is contrast. The shreds at the edge of each cake catch the heat and go brown and crisp and faintly sweet, while the cabbage in the middle stays green and gives a little under the tooth. Cooked shrimp go in chopped so you meet them in pieces rather than in one lump, and the grated ginger keeps everything from tasting flat. Toasted sesame seeds go into the batter and over the finished cakes as well, because they soften slightly inside and stay crunchy on top, and that difference is worth the extra thirty seconds it costs you.
I put these on the table on weekend mornings when nobody wants another egg on toast, and I make a double batch when I know the week ahead is a mess. They reheat in a dry pan better than any pancake I know, they are just as good folded into a lunchbox at room temperature, and they take kindly to whatever is in the refrigerator: a handful of grated carrot, a few sliced snow peas, the last of a bunch of cilantro. Serve them with lime, and put the wedges on the table so people can go again, because the second squeeze is always better than the first.
Ingredients
- 1/2 small head green cabbage (about 1 lb), cored and shredded as thin as you can
- 9 oz cooked peeled shrimp, patted dry and roughly chopped
- 4 large eggs
- 2 heads baby bok choy, sliced crosswise into thin ribbons
- 5 tbsp ground flaxseed
- 4 scallions, sliced thin, white and green parts kept separate
- 4 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
- 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
- 1 tbsp tamari
- 1 tbsp avocado oil, for the pan
- 2 tsp toasted sesame oil
- 1 tbsp lime juice, plus wedges to serve
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Shred and salt nothing, just cut fine: Core the cabbage and slice it as thin as you can manage, then cut the shreds crosswise once so no piece is longer than about two inches. Keep them short, since long shreds tangle and give you cakes that fall apart in the pan. Slice the bok choy into thin ribbons, keeping the white stems and the green leaves together, and pile everything into your largest bowl.
- Make the binder: Beat the eggs in a small bowl with the ground flaxseed, tamari, ginger, sesame oil, and black pepper, then let it stand two minutes until it thickens to the texture of loose cream. Pour it over the cabbage with the shrimp, the scallion whites, and half the sesame seeds.
- Toss until every shred is coated: Work with your hands rather than a spoon, lifting from the bottom and turning the pile over on itself for a full minute. The mixture will look too dry at first and then suddenly look right, glossy and clinging, as the flaxseed pulls the moisture from the cabbage.
- Griddle in batches: Heat half the avocado oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Drop four mounds of about a cup each into the pan and press each one flat to a quarter inch with the back of a spatula. Cook four minutes without touching them, until the underside is brown and lacy at the rim, then flip and press again and give them three to four minutes more. Repeat with the rest.
- Finish and serve: Slide the pancakes onto plates, squeeze the lime over them while they are still hot, and scatter the scallion greens and the remaining sesame seeds across the top. Eat them within a minute or two of leaving the pan, because the crisp edges soften as they sit.
Variations
- Kimchi and scallion: Fold half a cup of chopped kimchi into the mixture and cut the tamari back to two teaspoons for a sharper, funkier pancake.
- Crab: Swap the shrimp for cooked crab meat, folded in gently at the end so the pieces stay whole.
- Carrot and snow pea: Replace a third of the cabbage with coarsely grated carrot and thinly sliced snow peas for a sweeter cake with more color.
- Tofu: Crumble firm tofu in place of the shrimp, pressing it dry first, and add an extra teaspoon of tamari to season it.
Storage & Leftovers
Cooked pancakes keep four days in the refrigerator, stacked with a square of parchment between them so they do not fuse. The cabbage softens overnight and the flavor deepens, which I actually prefer on day two.
Reheat in a dry skillet over medium for two minutes a side. That is the only method that brings the crisp edge back. A microwave heats them through in forty seconds but leaves them limp, so save that for a morning when you are eating standing up anyway.
The uncooked mixture does not hold, since salt from the tamari draws water out of the cabbage and the batter goes soupy within an hour. Cook the whole batch and refrigerate what you do not eat. Finished pancakes freeze for two months in a flat sealed bag and go straight from frozen into a dry pan over medium-low.
Notes & Tips
- Slice thinner than feels necessary: Cabbage cut on the thick side stays crunchy and refuses to bind, and the cakes come apart. A sharp knife or the slicing disc of a food processor gets you there in two minutes.
- Give the flaxseed its two minutes: It needs that time in the egg to swell and turn tacky. Poured straight over the cabbage it runs to the bottom of the bowl and the mixture never comes together.
- Press, then leave them alone: Every press after the first flip squeezes out steam and helps the edges crisp, but poking and lifting to check before four minutes are up is what tears a pancake in half.
- Pat the shrimp dry: Cooked shrimp carry more water than you think, and that water goes straight into the batter. A minute with a paper towel is the difference between a crisp edge and a soft one.
- Toast the sesame seeds yourself: Three minutes in a dry pan over medium, shaken constantly until they smell nutty and start to pop. Bought pre-toasted they are usually stale, and this dish leans on them.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Cabbage, shrimp, egg, and flaxseed each do a separate job in these cakes. The cabbage and bok choy give the bulk and the fiber, the shrimp bring most of the protein, the egg and the ground flaxseed hold it all together, and the sesame seeds carry the flavor that makes the whole thing taste finished.
- Shrimp are firm, sweet, and quick to cook, and they are an unusually dense source of protein for their size, which is what turns a plate of vegetables into a breakfast. They also carry selenium and vitamin B12.
- Cabbage belongs to the same family as broccoli and mustard, and the sulfur compounds behind that family resemblance are what give the browned edges their sweet, faintly nutty smell. Shredded this fine it delivers a lot of fiber for very little bulk on the plate.
- Sesame seeds are one of the better plant sources of calcium, and toasting them is what brings out the oil and the aroma that carries through the whole pancake. Whole seeds hold their crunch on top while the ones inside the batter go soft.
- Ginger, lime, and scallion greens are the finishing notes and they matter more than their quantity suggests. The ginger brings warmth, the lime cuts the richness of the egg, and both make a savory breakfast taste bright rather than heavy.
- As you eat, listen for the crackle at the lacy edge and notice how the ginger arrives a beat after the sweetness of the cabbage, and let the plate take longer than a breakfast usually gets.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use uncooked shrimp?
Yes. Chop them small, no bigger than a thumbnail, so they cook through in the four minutes the first side takes, and give the pancakes an extra minute on the second side. Cooked shrimp are what make this a fast breakfast, which is why they are written into the recipe.
My pancakes fell apart when I flipped them. What happened?
Almost always they were too thick or too big. Press them to a quarter inch and keep them to about four inches across, and use a wide spatula that can get under the whole cake in one move. Waiting the full four minutes for the underside to set matters too, since a pale pancake has nothing holding it.
Is there a substitute for ground flaxseed?
Chia meal works the same way and gives a slightly firmer cake. In a pinch two tablespoons of almond flour will bind them, though you lose some of the structure and want to keep the pancakes smaller.
What do you serve alongside?
Usually nothing, since there is cabbage, bok choy, and shrimp in the cakes already. If you want a sauce, thin a spoonful of tahini with lime juice and water until it pours, or put out a small dish of tamari with grated ginger stirred through it.