Takoyaki (たこ焼き) is a dish that involves baking chunky pieces of octopus and green onion in batter. Tako (たこ) means octopus and yaki (焼; やき) means baked in Japanese. This is one of Osaka’s quintessential favorites and is also a popular street food snack across Japan.
Like many of Osaka’s favorite dishes, takoyaki uses a wheat flour batter for its base. The practice of using this batter to supplement the people’s diets was common in Japan, especially during food shortages. In places like Osaka, people cooked the batter in pans with spherical depressions to create round snacks called choboyaki.
Around 1935, a choboyaki seller named Endo Tomekichi was experimenting with adding different ingredients to his choboyaki, one of which was octopus. After successfully creating the perfect balance of batter and octopus, he opened a shop called Aizuya Umeda, which still sells takoyaki made with the original recipe today.
Takoyaki’s distinctive spherical shape is created by rotating the batter using a special pan called a takoyaki-ki (たこ焼き器) which has eight or more half circle depressions built in. Once the pan is heated, it is then filled with minced or diced octopus and batter. Additional fillings usually include crunchy tenkasu tempura scraps, pickled ginger and green onion. The finished takoyaki is then topped with takoyaki sauce (which is very similar to Worcestershire sauce), Japanese mayonnaise, dried aonori seaweed, and bonito flakes.
Get takoyaki to-go or have it delivered to your home from:
NIPPON Restaurant (open Wednesday-Sunday)
Let’s continue to support local Japanese restaurants!
—by GEN-J Facilitator Keiko Tsubokura