Japanese dish by street vendor Part II;Takoyaki
In previous entry titled "Japanese dish by street vendor Part I: Yakisoba ", I wrote that if you visit festivals in Japan, you would find many vendor stalls that sell all kinds of things such as Oden ,grilled corn basted with soy sauce, Okonomiyaki
(savory pancake), Yakisoba (Worcester sauce flavored fried noodle
with vegetables),Takoyaki (savory ball shaped pan cake batter with chunk
of octopus), and mitarashi dango (Japanese dumplings made from rice
flour and skewered and basted with sweet soy sauce flavored sauce),yakitori etc.
Here, I like to introduce a dish by street vendors at Japanese festivals; Takoyaki.
What is Takoyaki?
"Tako" in Japanese means "Octopus" and "Yaki" means "grill/baked" in Japanese.
Takoyaki is round savory pancakes that has chunks of boiled octopus. Generally, it has tempura breading bits, pickled ginger, green onion, and chunks of boiled octopus, and cooked in sort of like cast iron that has round mold on it. Sauce for this dish is same sauce used for Okonomiyaki ,then when they are served, crushed seaweed and bonito flakes are sprinkled over the dish.
The Takoyaki pan is called "Takoyaki ki" and, usually it has 2" diameter or so of molds and finished products are about/a little bigger than size of golf balls.
Takoyaki is one of those dishes that I have childhood memories with. My father is a great cook when it comes to making Takoyaki. He made Takoyaki every Saturday for lunch. I remember I was jokingly said that he should become a Takoyaki vendors at festivals because he was very good at making them.
Since our family loved Takoyaki so much that every time we took a road trip for family vacation, we stopped at rest areas on high ways, and bought Takoyaki from vendors at the rest areas. The same vendor had unique dish there too. It was a whole peeled potato,about the size of small red skin potatoes, and the potatoes were dipped into pancake batter and deep fried them and kosher salt was sprinkled over the hot potatoes. It was really good. When we stop at the rest area, we made sure we get two dishes there on our way home.
Recently,when I was watching Food network TV shows, I saw similar pan to familiar Takoyaki pan. It was the pan used to make round pancakes in Denmark called "Aebleskivers'. Filling was chocolate,apple,all kinds of fruits, and it was sweet pancakes, and it was bigger round pancakes than Takoyaki.The Danish round pancake looked so tasty.
According to wikipedia , the Danish pancake "Aebleskivers" would taste like popover/pancakes. I would love to make them one day.
I came across foodgather.com website that talked about Danish round pancakes and how you can make it.To read the full article at foodgather.com website,please click here .
Since my husband is not a big fan of octopus, I do not have a chance to make Takoyaki, but basic recipe goes..
1. To the bowl,crack an egg, add water,granulated dashi and salt, and mix well.
** You can get granulated dashi at Asian store or local grocery store at International ail. Product name will be "Hon dashi"
2. To the bowl with egg/water/salt, add flour and mix
3. When Takoyaki pan is hot enough, grease the pan and pour the batter to the top of each mold, and drop the chunk of octopus right away into each mold with batter
4 Sprinkle chopped green onion,pickled ginger,tempura breading pieces over the each mold of Takoyaki pan
5. When edge is getting cooked,using toothpicks, rotate the Takoyaki little by little and make a round Takoyaki, and when they are all cooked through, Okonomiyaki sauce over, and sprinkle crushed seaweed and bonito flakes and done!
This is how I roughly remember how my father was making Takoyaki. I will ask my father how he made his delicious Takoyaki exactly and update this entry with his actual recipe later.
Meanwhile, I could find a video at youtube on Takoyaki street vendor.You can see how he makes his Takoyaki and you can get an idea on what the food is like. The video is in Japanese and,I will explain what he is doing on bottom of the video.
If you are a blog subscriber or reading from Facebook,please click here to watch video.
Making of Takoyaki (Savory pancake with octopus)
* He greased the pan with little metal handle thing
* Then, he poured his signature Takoyaki batter over the pan
- As you can see, Takoyaki batter is much much thinner than Okonomiyaki batter.
* Then, he dropped boiled octopus chunk into each mold
* Then,secret sauce over the batter
* Then,sprinkle chopped green onions,and tempura breading pieces
* When top is getting cooked, using metal toothpicks,turning over to make a round pancakes
* He keeps turning the pancake balls over to get equal brown color over the pancakes
* Then, he pour his signature sauce, sprinkled chopped green onion and pour mayonnaise over and served
One thing that would amazed you about street vendors that make Takoyaki is that the speed they can turn the Takoyaki pancakes. They usually turn so fast. Bellow, You can see how fast they can flip the Takoyaki Pancakes.
If you are a blog subscriber or reading from Facebook,please click here to watch video.
Takoyaki flipping
Here, I like to introduce a dish by street vendors at Japanese festivals; Takoyaki.
What is Takoyaki?
"Tako" in Japanese means "Octopus" and "Yaki" means "grill/baked" in Japanese.
Takoyaki is round savory pancakes that has chunks of boiled octopus. Generally, it has tempura breading bits, pickled ginger, green onion, and chunks of boiled octopus, and cooked in sort of like cast iron that has round mold on it. Sauce for this dish is same sauce used for Okonomiyaki ,then when they are served, crushed seaweed and bonito flakes are sprinkled over the dish.
The Takoyaki pan is called "Takoyaki ki" and, usually it has 2" diameter or so of molds and finished products are about/a little bigger than size of golf balls.
Takoyaki is one of those dishes that I have childhood memories with. My father is a great cook when it comes to making Takoyaki. He made Takoyaki every Saturday for lunch. I remember I was jokingly said that he should become a Takoyaki vendors at festivals because he was very good at making them.
Since our family loved Takoyaki so much that every time we took a road trip for family vacation, we stopped at rest areas on high ways, and bought Takoyaki from vendors at the rest areas. The same vendor had unique dish there too. It was a whole peeled potato,about the size of small red skin potatoes, and the potatoes were dipped into pancake batter and deep fried them and kosher salt was sprinkled over the hot potatoes. It was really good. When we stop at the rest area, we made sure we get two dishes there on our way home.
Recently,when I was watching Food network TV shows, I saw similar pan to familiar Takoyaki pan. It was the pan used to make round pancakes in Denmark called "Aebleskivers'. Filling was chocolate,apple,all kinds of fruits, and it was sweet pancakes, and it was bigger round pancakes than Takoyaki.The Danish round pancake looked so tasty.
According to wikipedia , the Danish pancake "Aebleskivers" would taste like popover/pancakes. I would love to make them one day.
I came across foodgather.com website that talked about Danish round pancakes and how you can make it.To read the full article at foodgather.com website,please click here .
Since my husband is not a big fan of octopus, I do not have a chance to make Takoyaki, but basic recipe goes..
1. To the bowl,crack an egg, add water,granulated dashi and salt, and mix well.
** You can get granulated dashi at Asian store or local grocery store at International ail. Product name will be "Hon dashi"
2. To the bowl with egg/water/salt, add flour and mix
3. When Takoyaki pan is hot enough, grease the pan and pour the batter to the top of each mold, and drop the chunk of octopus right away into each mold with batter
4 Sprinkle chopped green onion,pickled ginger,tempura breading pieces over the each mold of Takoyaki pan
5. When edge is getting cooked,using toothpicks, rotate the Takoyaki little by little and make a round Takoyaki, and when they are all cooked through, Okonomiyaki sauce over, and sprinkle crushed seaweed and bonito flakes and done!
This is how I roughly remember how my father was making Takoyaki. I will ask my father how he made his delicious Takoyaki exactly and update this entry with his actual recipe later.
Meanwhile, I could find a video at youtube on Takoyaki street vendor.You can see how he makes his Takoyaki and you can get an idea on what the food is like. The video is in Japanese and,I will explain what he is doing on bottom of the video.
If you are a blog subscriber or reading from Facebook,please click here to watch video.
Making of Takoyaki (Savory pancake with octopus)
In this video above, what you saw is as followings.
* He greased the pan with little metal handle thing
* Then, he poured his signature Takoyaki batter over the pan
- As you can see, Takoyaki batter is much much thinner than Okonomiyaki batter.
* Then, he dropped boiled octopus chunk into each mold
* Then,secret sauce over the batter
* Then,sprinkle chopped green onions,and tempura breading pieces
* When top is getting cooked, using metal toothpicks,turning over to make a round pancakes
* He keeps turning the pancake balls over to get equal brown color over the pancakes
* Then, he pour his signature sauce, sprinkled chopped green onion and pour mayonnaise over and served
One thing that would amazed you about street vendors that make Takoyaki is that the speed they can turn the Takoyaki pancakes. They usually turn so fast. Bellow, You can see how fast they can flip the Takoyaki Pancakes.
If you are a blog subscriber or reading from Facebook,please click here to watch video.
Takoyaki flipping
If you could get Takoyaki pan in the house, you could have Takoyaki for meal and see if you like them. It is fun and it may also be good party entertainment type of dishes.
Posted by yassy at 7/22/2010 1:49 PM 
Categories: Japan
Tags: takoyaki japan street vendor stalls food
Categories: Japan
Tags: takoyaki japan street vendor stalls food
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