TAKOYAKI (Japan's Best Street Food)

last week I was in Tokyo and one of the most memorable bites that I had was a street food called takoyaki also known as octopus balls there are vendors with walk-up shops all over the city and you basically watch them fry up the balls right in front of you and once they're done they get topped with any number of junky condiments but the classic as far as I know is Japanese barbecue sauce mayonnaise seaweed and the omnipresent dried fish flakes called Bonito takoyaki's are comforting craveable and possibly the best drunk food available in Japan today I'm going to show you how to make them at home in ball form and then a sneaky way to make them if you don't have the specialized ball shaped pan now I know that some of you are going octopus that's cringe thick with me this recipe is basically for a frittery pancake that can be stuffed with just about anything delicious shrimp vegetables ham bacon whatever you like today I'm going with what I and everyone in Japan thinks is the most delicious and that's octopus so to get started we'll need some octo this is a whole two pound octopus that I got at the Whole Foods Seafood counter but another place to pick one up would be the International Grocery Store in the freezer section if you don't want to cook your own Octopus by the way I've got another option coming up for you later in the video now to cook this thing I'm going to lower it into a large pot of very salty boiling water like almost as salty as the ocean then I'll turn the heat down to medium low and set a timer for one hour making octopus deliciously tender is actually really easy it just takes a little bit of time so I'll pop on a lid and check back halfway through in the meantime let's make the two condiments that we need to Sauce these balls homemade Kewpie mayo and Japanese BBQ first we'll make the sweet Savory Japanese barbecue for that into a high sided container I'll combine 50 grams of oyster sauce or Hoisin would also be a good sub then 50 grams of molasses 5 grams of rice vinegar 50 grams of ketchup because it's not barbecue if it doesn't got no chump then 5 grams of micro plain Ginger one gram of garlic powder 1 gram of onion powder 20 grams of water 10 grams of soy sauce and most importantly 50 grams of worch weirdly but awesomely we're merch is the main flavor of this Japanese barbecue sauce next the immersion blender goes in and I'll spin this up until everything is well combined of course you could just whisk this to get it all mixed together but I prefer to break the ginger down all the way with my blender by the way this sauce is great for more than just octopus balls it's salty sweet Umami character primes it for grilled chicken or salmon or throw it on top of a rice bowl and if you don't want to make it the internet's got it I'll link to it down below or you can find it at the International Grocery Store next let's make my version of QP mayonnaise to make it into a high sided container I'll combine one large egg 75 grams of rice vinegar 5 grams of salt 5 grams of sugar and one to two grams of MSG whereas ajinomoto calls it the essence of umami if you haven't cooked with MSG before it basically tastes like Chinese food takeout it kind of dilates your taste buds and makes things taste louder it's a lot of fun to mess around with and one of the things that we're going to use to replicate that QB flavor and if you're not familiar QP is a Japanese mayonnaise that has a Tangy Umami flavor that makes it hit pretty different from American Mayo it's more tart more creamy and way more intense now to make this into mayonnaise I'm going to spin up the base with my immersion blender then grab 325 grams of a neutral oil I'm using canola here but light olive sunflower or avocado would also work and I'm drizzling this oil in slowly to emulsify it with the egg but don't go too slowly because that will whip air into the mixture making it kind of unstable and that could break it so I'd say medium speed drizzle and once you get to the top of a vessel this size you'll need to stop spinning the oil that's sitting on top and then add the rest and spin again if it gets too thick on top you'll need to work the blender up and down to make sure the oil is getting evenly spread throughout and there we go my variation of QP it's quite tart it's creamy and it tickles your tongue from that touch of MSG but of course if you don't want to make your own you could doctor up some pre-made mayonnaise with some MSG a little bit of rice vinegar and a little bit of sugar mix that together and you're going to be in the ballpark back at the stove it's been about 30 minutes and at this point I just want to come back and make make sure that everything is cooking evenly so I'm going to flip this over to get anything that was sticking out of the water submerged for that last half hour the lid goes back on and I'll check back in 30. while that finishes cooking let's make the takoyaki better for that into a high sided container I'll combine 325 grams of water 10 grams of Dashi powder if you don't have dry Dashi powder I would say sub 10 grams of soy sauce instead next in goes 7 grams of baking powder two large eggs and then 160 grams of all-purpose flour lastly the immersion blender goes in and I'll spin that until I form a thin lumpless pancake batter of course a whisk could also do this job and once this batter is all mixed up it's time to see if that octo is done cooking the best way to do that is to put a cake tester through the tentacle it should go in and out of the flesh with very little resistance if yours is still rubbery here just throw it back on the stove and boil it for another 15 to 20. octopus is very hard to overcook it's actually rubbery when cooked less unlike pretty much every other meat next I need to cool this octo down so that it's firm enough to to cut and that'll take about 30 to 45 minutes so I'll throw it into my fridge and quickly thank vetted for sponsoring this video if you buy anything on the internet you have to vet it before you get it vet it is a free browser extension that automatically shows you the research on products that you're looking for so that you can avoid buying things that suck here's a little scenario you're looking for a new blender despite the four star reviews on this one vetted gives you a quick rundown of why users liked and didn't like it and what experts and Reddit think about it then it gives you a better alternative based on research and guess what that's the blender that I've already got way to go Bry but it works right on Amazon so you can know how the products that you're looking for stack up without doing the literal hours of research for yourself I'm very guilty of that I use Reddit for almost everything that I buy online these days and The Time Savings is real I do way too much research before I buy anything so vetted is my little time saving AI research sidekick and it helps me be a little less neurotic with my buying Decisions by the way it's free you can get vetted for free using my link in the description it's super easy and again free click my link in the description to grab your download 45 minutes later I've got a firmed up octopus ready to cut now I need to cut off the head but the footage of that felt a little graphic and I didn't want to be demonetized so here's a cute cat playing instead oh look at that thing next I need to pop out the beak of the octopus that's right in the middle of the tentacles and pops out easily enough that footage doesn't feel that much better than the head stuff but this is just how it works and once I've got the tentacles cut apart I'm going to cut them into roughly half inch size chunks if the octopus is too big it'll make the batter overflow in the pan and that will make forming things into a ball much harder also if you're not an octopus person I totally get it a nicely poached shrimp would be a great sub here I'll link to my spring roll video where I show a nice technique for cooking shrimp properly now we've got just a few very quick bits of knife work to sort out before we make this Yaki the first of which is Pickled ginger for this dish I prefer the less sweet Matchstick shaped version the thinner stuff that comes with your sushi is good and can work but I find it to be too sweet I'll just top about a half cups worth into a small dice like this I also need to slice some scallions thinly one Bunch should be plenty for the amount of octo and batter that we have in total we've got enough of that to make 32 balls lastly I'll make sure that I've got some chopped Bonito flake on hand Bonita flakes are what make the Dashi stock that I mentioned earlier and that Dashi powder is a concentrated form of it but we also need the flakes themselves to garnish the dish and season the inside of the ball now to make these takoyaki I'll grab my takoyaki pan and drop it over medium heat I got my pan off of Amazon and I'll link to it in the description below but if you don't have one I'm going to bring an alternate method to the table in just a second now once this pan is evenly preheated over medium heat I'll spray it liberally with some pan spray then I'll take half of the batter that we made earlier and fill each hole just below the edge of the rim too much batter here and it will overflow and the balls will get stuck together and folding them into a ball shape would be much more difficult I'll save about 10 percent of the batter in the cup here to fill these up more in just a second for now I'll layer on the scallions making sure to get five to eight pieces per ball then Pickled ginger about eight to twelve bits of Ginger per ball is what I like then next I'll sprinkle a few pinches of Bonito flakes all over the place to bring some salty fishiness and then finally I'll drop two small chunks of octo or shrimp or ham or bacon whatever you want into each little bit of batter or if you don't want to cook your own octopus you could buy something like these octopus style cooked squid slices I've seen this at a few grocery stores around town and it's a totally viable option plus this way you don't have to cut off the head yourself or rip out a beak and once I've got my fillings all laid out I'm gonna cook this for about a minute to set the bottom side of the ball and after a minute I'll come back with a chopstick and use a push down and scooping move to firmly rotate the balls 90 degrees if your ball is overflowed with too much batter and it's all stuck together that's not a big deal just use the Chopsticks to break them apart and then turn just like I am here next I'll take that reserved 10 to 15 percent of batter and fill in the molds one more time adding this extra batter after the balls are set lets us make them bigger with a less messy overflow situation and if we didn't film a bit more they would be kind of small and wimpy looking I'm gonna cook this for another 30 to 45 seconds to let that fresh batter set a little bit then I'll come back and rotate the balls 90 degrees one more time this time I'm making sure to tuck any of the overlapping stuff underneath the ball and if you get to a spot where the balls are connected by set better just slide your Chopstick in between them to break them apart and keep on tucking now I'll give these balls another minute or two to get set up and then I'll repeat my turning move one more time in total a batch of these takes me about 8 to 10 minutes once they're tucked under the first time it's just a matter of rotating them to get them evenly browned and there we go maybe not the perfectly round ones that I had in Tokyo here are those ones for reference but you know that guy's made like a a million more than me so he's probably got it dial pretty tight but I'm happy with this product it's round it's well browned and that's all that we need if you don't have the specific pan I would say grab a 10 inch non-stick pan spray it then add in half of the batter recipe that we made earlier scallions Ginger Bonito flakes then octo just like before then I'll cook this on the first side over medium heat for four to five minutes and once the top is bubbling like a pancake would I'll check the bottom and as you can see it looks nicely golden brown so it's time to flip it don't do it the Hot Shot way though I am very good at flipping things in pans like I did it professionally for a decade but this pancake just isn't the right candidate for a flip it'll probably break no oh so the way to flip this is with the frittata method slide it onto a plate then top it with the pan and then carefully flip it over then put the pancake back on the stove and cook it over medium heat for three to four more minutes once it's done garnish the pancake in the exact same way that I'm about to show you for the balls that's going to be a generous Squiggy of the homemade Kewpie followed by the Japanese barbecue sauce go heavy on both sauces here you guys they need a lot then I'll top that with some thinly sliced scallions a few strong pinches of Bonito flake and then a few strong pinches of fried seaweed and that's a pretty looking takoyaki this dish represents so much of what I love about Japanese food it's incredibly flavorful it's beautiful to look at and it's a little bit weird the batter is like Yorkshire pudding it's eggy and dense and Rich the two sauces here combine to bring fat acidity Umami sweetness and Worchester suriness and the whole thing has a backbone of salty smoky fish flavor that is super unique to Japanese cooking you guys the Japanese have mastered junk food with this one in a way that no one else can touch and I really think you need to try this for yourself let's eat this thing [Music] if you guys like Asian comfort food check out this video for Korean bibimbap [Music]

Channel: Brian Lagerstrom

Views: 185,502

Keywords: takoyaki, octopus balls, how to make takoyaki, takoyaki recipe, Japanese street food, homemade kewpie, kewpie dupe, how to make kewpie, kewpie mayo, takoyaki pan, homemade takoyaki, how to make Japanese octopus balls, japanese sauce, Japanese food, Japanese cooking, Brian lagerstrom, weeds and sardines, make octopus balls, how to use bonito, takoyaki batter, octopus, cook octopus, how to cook octopus

Id: 1i9pKIAGxD8

Length: 12min 11sec (731 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 24 2023