Takoyaki

Name: Takoyaki
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: 120 g Wheat flour; 2 u Egg; 1 teaspoon Soy sauce; 1 pinch Salt; 2 teaspoons Sugar; 3 tablespoons Vegetable Oil; 3 u Spring Onions; 1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce; 1.5 tablespoons Tomato Ketchup; 3 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce; 4 tablespoons Mayonnaise; 200 g Octopus; 480 ml Dashi stock; 1 handful Bonito flakes (katsuobushi); 2 teaspoons Nori seaweed; 30 g Tenkasu (tempura scraps); 2 tablespoons Red pickled ginger (beni shoga)

Medium

Contains allergens

Cereales con glutenHuevosSojaMoluscosPescadoMostaza(may contain)Crustáceos(may contain)

Incomplete allergen information: some ingredients have not been reviewed yet. Always check the labels before cooking.

Author: Equipo Cocinoa
Preparation time: 30 min
Servings: 4

Summary

Little balls of dashi batter with a piece of octopus inside, golden outside and almost creamy within: Osaka's most famous street snack. They are set in a dimpled pan and finished with sauce, mayonnaise, seaweed and bonito flakes.

Ingredients

4 servings

Add to Bring!

120 g Wheat flour
2 u Egg
1 teaspoon Soy sauce
1 pinch Salt
2 teaspoons Sugar
3 tablespoons Vegetable Oil (for greasing the pan)
3 u Spring Onions (thinly sliced)
1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
1.5 tablespoons Tomato Ketchup
3 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
4 tablespoons Mayonnaise (Japanese if you can find it)
200 g Octopus (cooked, cut into 1.5 cm pieces)
480 ml Dashi stock (cold)
1 handful Bonito flakes (katsuobushi)
2 teaspoons Nori seaweed (flakes (aonori), or a sheet of nori finely crumbled)
30 g Tenkasu (tempura scraps) (tempura scraps)
2 tablespoons Red pickled ginger (beni shoga) (beni shoga, chopped)

Instructions

Mix the Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, oyster sauce and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Set this sauce aside for the end.
Whisk the eggs with the cold dashi, soy sauce and salt. Add the sifted flour and whisk until there are no lumps: the batter should be very runny, like thick milk. Pour it into a jug with a spout.
5 min
Heat the takoyaki pan over medium-high heat and generously grease the holes and the surface with oil, using a brush or kitchen paper.
3 min
Fill the holes with batter until it overflows and also covers the surface between them. Straight away, drop a piece of octopus into each hole and scatter the tenkasu, ginger and spring onion over the top.
2 min
When the edges start to set, use a skewer to cut the batter between the holes and turn each ball a quarter turn, tucking the excess batter inside. Keep turning them little by little until they form closed spheres that are golden and crisp all over.
8 min
Transfer them to a plate and repeat with the rest of the batter, greasing the pan before each batch.
10 min
Brush the balls with the sauce, pipe thin lines of mayonnaise over them and sprinkle with the seaweed and bonito flakes, which will dance in the heat. Serve at once.
2 min

Notes

You need a takoyaki pan, either cast iron for the hob or electric; a Danish aebleskiver pan also works. The trick is to fill the holes until they overflow: the batter left on the flat part of the pan gets tucked inside as you turn the balls and completes the sphere. Ready-cooked octopus from the fishmonger or tinned in brine works perfectly. If you can't find bottled takoyaki or okonomiyaki sauce, the homemade mix in this recipe is very close. Tenkasu are the crunchy scraps left over from frying tempura; if you can't find them, fry a few drops of tempura batter until golden. Take care when biting in, as the centre is very hot. Cooked balls without sauce freeze well and reheat in the oven at 180 °C.