Photo: iStock
Ingredients
Bonito flake: 1/4 cup (dried)
Green onion: 2 (or scallions)
Pickled red ginger: 1 tbsp
Boiled octopus: 4.2 oz (120 grams)
Neutral oil: 2 tbsp
Tenkasu (tempura scraps): 1/3 cup
All purpose flour: 1 cup
Baking powder: 2 tsp
Kosher salt: 1/2 tsp (use half for table salt)
Eggs: 2 large
Soy sauce: 1 tsp
Dashi: 1 and a 1/2 cups
Takoyaki sauce: 1/2 cup
Japanese-style/kewpie mayonnaise
Katsuobushi
Aonori (dried green laver seaweed)
Pickled red ginger
Takoyaki is one of Japan’s best-known street foods. These little round balls containing pieces of octopus are fun to make with your friends and family. Find out how.
Takoyaki – たこ焼き in Japanese, literally ‘octopus dumplings’ – is a quintessential Japanese street snack that originated in Osaka. It’s a savoury dish of grilled balls of batter made with flour and eggs filled with a little nugget of octopus and other ingredients like green onions, pickled ginger and tempura bits. The outside is slightly crispy, and the inside batter is seasoned, fluffy, and has a gooey consistency that melts in your mouth. Green onions add a touch of freshness, pickled ginger brings a hint of sweet and sour, and crispy tempura bits make it even richer. They’re brushed with takoyaki sauce, drizzled with Japanese kewpie mayo – for even more flavour – and topped with bonito flakes and seaweed.
Takoyaki is typically sold at stands or small restaurants and is also popular at summer festivals. Takoyaki balls are about the size of golf balls, and each order contains about eight of them. They are typically served in paper dishes that look like little boats and come with skewers or chopsticks to pick them up. They’re served piping hot, so be careful.
When people eat takoyaki, they are often surprised by its texture: is takoyaki supposed to be mushy? The answer is yes, it’s supposed to be a little runny and gooey inside. The gooeyness is what most vendors strive for because it adds to the uniqueness of takoyaki.
Method
To prepare the filling, grind the bonito flakes (katsuobushi) into a fine powder. Set it aside – we'll use this powder when we're cooking the takoyaki.
Slice the green onions finely and mince the red pickled ginger.
Cut the octopus into 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) bite-sized pieces.
For the takoyaki batter, combine the flour, baking powder and kosher salt, and whisk it all together in a large mixing bowl.
Add the eggs, soy sauce and dashi.
Blend all the ingredients and transfer the batter to a measuring cup with a handle.
To cook the takoyaki, heat the pan to 400ºF (200ºC) over medium heat. Oil the pan's round chambers and flat surface on top using a brush. Fill the chambers with batter as soon as you see smoke rising from the pan. A slight overfilling of the chambers is okay – as you add more ingredients, the batter will likely overflow.
Place 1-3 octopus pieces in each chamber and sprinkle the ground katsuobushi powder on top.
Sprinkle the tenkasu, green onion and pickled red ginger on top. Approximately three minutes later, when the batter on the bottom of the balls is set and slightly crisp, use skewers to separate the connected batter between each ball. Next, rotate each piece 90 degrees toward the bottom of the pan, stuffing the connected dough back into the ball as you turn to help form a ball shape. Each takoyaki will have uncooked batter flowing out to create another side of the ball. Set a timer for 4 minutes after you finish turning them.
Next, rotate them a second time. Turn each takoyaki another 90 degrees toward the bottom of the pan, allowing the remaining uncooked batter to pour out into the chambers to complete the ball shape. Once they have been turned and cooked for 4 minutes, they are done.
To serve, place them on a plate and drizzle with takoyaki sauce and Japanese mayonnaise. As a final touch, sprinkle on katsuobushi and dried green seaweed and a side of pickled red ginger.
