Takoyaki
Ball-shaped Japanese street food from Osaka with a crispy exterior and molten interior, packed with diced octopus and cooked in a special cast-iron pan. Topped with sweet-savory sauce, Japanese mayo, and bonito flakes that dance visibly in the rising heat.
- 1 cupall-purpose flour
- 1 tspdashi powder
- 2 largeeggs
- 1.5 cupswater
- 6 ozcooked octopus(diced small)
- 3 tbsppickled ginger(minced)
- 4 wholescallions(thinly sliced)
- 1/4 cuptenkasu
- 1/4 cuptakoyaki sauce(for topping)
- 3 tbspKewpie mayonnaise(for topping)
- 1/2 cupbonito flakes(for topping)
- 1 sheetnori seaweed(shredded, for topping)
Must be served immediately - takoyaki do not hold well. Batter can be made 1 hour ahead.
- 1Whisk flour, dashi powder, eggs, and water until smooth, let rest 15 minutes
- 2Heat takoyaki pan and brush wells generously with oil
- 3Fill each well nearly full with batter
- 4Add a piece of octopus, some ginger, scallions, and tenkasu to each
- 5Cook until bottom sets, about 2 minutes
- 6Use picks to rotate balls 90 degrees, let cook another minute
- 7Continue rotating to form spheres, cooking until golden all over, about 5 minutes total
- 8Transfer to serving boat, drizzle with takoyaki sauce and mayo in zigzag pattern
- 9Top with bonito flakes and nori, serve immediately while bonito is still dancing
A takoyaki pan is essential. Keep turning the balls continuously for even cooking and a perfect round shape.
Takoyaki was created in 1935 by Tomekichi Endo, a street food vendor originally from Aizu in Fukushima Prefecture who had relocated to Osaka and opened a small stall he named Aizuya after his hometown. Endo had been selling an earlier snack called rajioyaki — a flat dumpling filled with beef and konjac — when a customer remarked that in nearby Akashi, octopus was used instead of meat in a similar dumpling called akashiyaki. Endo experimented, replacing the beef filling with diced octopus and cooking the batter in a special hemispherical cast-iron mold, producing the round ball shape now recognised worldwide as takoyaki. His original recipe was considerably simpler than today's version — served without sauce, mayonnaise, or garnishes, and eaten plain. The style most people know today, dressed with thick sweet-savory sauce, Japanese mayonnaise, dancing katsuobushi (bonito flakes), and dried green aonori seaweed, developed after World War II when Worcestershire-style sauces became widely available during the Allied occupation of Japan. Takoyaki spread from Osaka across Japan through the 1950s and 1960s, growing from a regional Kansai snack into a beloved national street food. Aizuya — the original shop — still operates in Osaka's Namba district and was recognised in the Michelin Bib Gourmand Guide from 2016 to 2018.