EzRA Cooks: Takoyaki

Even though it has been prepared at home, I can make an assurance that dish maintains a high standard of quality. To create this culinary delight, we visited a local Japanese grocery store to procure all the essential ingredients. But before anything else, let’s take a step back and delve into the details.

I procured a high-quality takoyaki pan from the online marketplace, Shopee. Despite the surprise it caused, I assured Ejii-chan that this impulsive acquisition would lead to a remarkable culinary adventure, offering an array of delightful flavors.

So here’s how you do it:

Ingredients:

All purpose flour
Corn flour/cornstarch
1 egg
Dashi stock
Cooked octopus pieces, preferably tentacles
Cabbage
Spring onions
Beni shoga (Japanese pickled red ginger)
Katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes)
Aonori (dried green seaweed flakes)
Takoyaki sauce
Japanese mayonnaise

Instructions:

  1. Make a batter by combining 1 egg, all purpose flour, and cornstarch. I didn’t really measure my stuff here. I just used ‘feelings’ like how Uncle Roger does it. Fine. Combine 1 egg with approximately 30g of flour, 30g cornstarch, and dilute it in 200mL of dashi stock. Consistency should be diluted like evaporated milk, not condensed.
  2. Prepare your stuff. Chop your spring onions, beni shoga, and the tako in small pieces that would fit inside your takoyaki balls.
  3. Pour oil in your takoyaki pan. Fill to probably about 1/8th or 1/6th of each pit.
  4. Pour batter on each pit. Drop everything in the cooking batter – chopped cabbage, beni shoga, spring onions, tako.
  5. Flip once side is formed enough to be flipped. Pour some batter again and form balls out of it.
  6. Your balls are done. Time to top them with everything umami – first with the takoyaki sauce (we bought the Otafuku brand but there’s a recipe on YouTube if you feel like doing yours from scratch), then the Japanese mayo (Kewpie), finely ground katsuobushi (I used a suribachi to finely grind mine into powder), the aonori, and lastly, with the katsuobushi flakes.
  7. Enjoy it while it’s hot.

(Yields 12 takoyaki balls)

Ejii-chan highly praised my initial attempt at preparing Takoyaki, referring to it as a “restaurant-grade”. She further requested more servings for her younger sister, who also expressed her utmost satisfaction with the dish.

Could you kindly suggest how we might best utilize the remaining 1kg of cooked octopus tentacles?