Yumiko's Home Cooking Takoyaki Recipe (Octopus Balls)

Prep Time : 5 mins | Cook Time : 20 mins | Total Time : 25 mins

A famed Osaka street food, takoyaki (octopus balls) is a small dumpling with a piece of octopus in the middle. Crispy on the outside and gooey inside, takoyaki is fun to make and delicious to eat. Please note that the cooking time does not include the time to boil the octopus. The cooking time assumes that the takoyaki balls are cooked in two batches.

Recipe type: Snack | Cuisine: Japanese Serves: 24 takoyaki balls | Author: Yumiko

INGREDIENTS (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)

Takoyaki batter (makes about 24 balls, note 1)

• 1egg • 450ml / 1pt dashi stock • 100g / 3.5oz flour (all purpose) • 1 tbsp soy sauce

Fillings

• 60g / 2.1oz boiled octopus (I used legs, note 2) • 3 tbsp shallots (Aussie)/scallions finely chopped • 11⁄2 tbsp benishoga, finely diced • 2 tbsp tenkasu

Toppings

• Bulldog chuno sauce (note 3) • Japanese mayonnaise (optional, note 4 ) • Aonori ( 青海苔 ) – dried seaweed flakes • Bonito flakes

Tools

• 1 Takoyaki grill pan/grill (note 5) • 1-2 long bamboo skewers or pointy chopsticks (note 6)

INSTRUCTIONS

1 Dice the octopus into 1-1.3cm / 1⁄2” cubes.

Making Takoyaki Batter

1 Crack an egg into a jar with a capacity of 750ml / 1.6 pt or more. Beat the egg.

2 Add dashi stock and soy sauce to the jar and mix well.

3 Add flour in three to four batches to the jar and mix well each time until there are no lumps in the mixture.

Cooking Takoyaki

1 Heat the takoyaki grill over medium-low heat.

2 Oil each mold and the surface of the grill generously. A little extra oil makes the takoyaki crispier on the outside.

3 Fill each hole with batter without overflowing (note 7). Slight spilling is fine.

4 Put a piece of octopus in each mold, then add the tenkasu, shallots/scallion, and benishōga on top of octopus. Leave some tenkasu, shallots/scallion, and benishōga for the second batch (1/3 in my case, as my pan makes 16 balls at a time).

5 Pour the batter over the mold and fill the entire surface of the pan/grill.

6 Using the long bamboo skewer or thin chopstick, draw grid lines between the molds to partition each takoyaki portion.

7 Starting from the mold that gets the strongest heat (where it cooks fastest), use one or two bamboo skewers or thin chopsticks to scrape the edges of the batter partition and move them toward the mold.

8 Turn the batter 90 degrees, while tucking the excess batter into the mold.

9 Repeat steps 11 and 12 for the rest of the takoyaki molds.

10 Turn the batter in each mold another 90 degrees so that the takoyaki batter is completely turned over from its original position.

11 Cook for about five minutes, turning the balls over from time to time to brown them evenly (note 8).

12 Transfer the takoyaki to a serving plate, smother them with takoyaki sauce and mayonnaise (optional), sprinkle over aonori and bonito flakes. Serve while hot.

13 Repeat all of the steps for making takoyaki, using the remaining batter and other ingredients.

RECIPE NOTES

1 Depending on the size of the semi-sphere mold and the amount of batter you overflow around the mold, the number of balls you make can change.

2 The weight of the octopus is approximate. Since I intended to make 24 balls, I cut the octopus into 24 pieces. Alternatively, you can cut it into smaller pieces and put two to three pieces in each mold.

There are two ways to boil octopus legs: a) Fast but the octopus will be slightly hard: Please see the “how to boil octopus” section in my post, “Octopus and Cucumber Sunomono.” b) Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes: This takes longer, but the octopus will be very tender. I give two options because I have found that option b) makes the octopus so tender that you may not even notice that there is an octopus piece inside the takoyaki ball.

3 The choice of sauce is up to you, but a slightly sweet and thick sauce goes well with takoyaki. I use Bulldog chūnō sauce in this recipe. If you only have Worcestershire sauce, you can mix tomato ketchup into the sauce to make it thicker and slightly sweeter. Add some sugar if you like it even sweeter. You can also buy takoyaki sauce in a bottle from Japanese or Asian grocery stores.

4 I usually don’t use mayonnaise with takoyaki, just like how I don’t use it with okonomiyaki. I think the addition of mayonnaise is a modern version of takoyaki.

5 Please refer to the About Takoyaki Grill Pan/Takoyaki Pan section in this post for more details.

6 Make sure that the sticks are at least 20 cm / 8” or even longer as you will get a strong heat from the pan/grill while handling the takoyaki balls. If the pan/grill has a non-stick coating, do not use a metal skewer as it will scratch the coating. If using a cast iron grill pan like a professional takoyaki shop, you can use a long ice pick.

7 I fill the molds from the outside first, as they are not as hot as the molds in the center.

8 You may swap the positions of the takoyaki balls between the hot molds and the not-so-hot molds.

9 How to Make Takoyaki Pancake:

1 Put 1 tbsp oil into a frying pan and heat over medium heat.

2 Add all the batter to the pan and mix well.

3 When the outside of the batter starts getting cooked, scatter the octopus pieces and other fillings in the half area of the frying pan (semi-circle area) closer to you.

4 Cook for a few minutes until the batter is almost cooked.

5 Using a spatula, fold the half area that does not have fifillings over to the other half with the fifillings.

6 Cook for a minute or so until the center of the pancake is cooked through.

7 Cut it into bite-size pieces.

The complete article can be found in Issue #282 of the Tokyo Journal.