Hello friends! How have you been? As for me, I am back with an exciting update!
I have decided to make another dish using the can of octopus!
This time I looked to this very thread for inspiration! PogChamp suggested Takoyaki, but unfortunately I wasn't able to wrangle all of the ingredients and I didn't want to buy a takoyaki pan, a single use kitchen tool, for just a one time recipe (how extravagant that would be!). So I decided to attempt a version of takoyaki using ingredients that I could find (most of them, it turns out!) and in a different shape. At first I thought I could make a sort of meatball out of it, but the batter turned out to be too watery so I opted for pancakes instead.
This is what happened:
First, the recipe I was using as a guideline told me that I needed to buy pickled ginger for the takoyaki. I couldn't find this anywhere, but I searched on the internet and discovered
a recipe to make it from scratch! All you needed to do was cut the ginger up into stripes, give them a bath in hot water, towel them off, and soak them in ume plum vinegar.
Next up, I needed to get some Tenkasu. I didn't know what that is but I recognized the crispy bits - I've seen them before at the bottom of the pan when I cooked something deep fried! I didn't have any leftover from the last time I deep fried something, so I had to make some just for this project.
I did this by getting some panko and mixing it with egg and a little salt. Then I crumbled it up and dry fried it in a tiny bit of garlic oil.
They turned out very crispy! The pieces might look big but they were not.
Now was the time to open up the can of octopus. I had two cans of octopus to open this time and I steeled myself against the possibility of there being no tentacles. I still smarted from the last time when there were none, you see.
To my great surprise, however, both cans of octopus contained several tentacles each! My dream came true!
All chopped
Here is the baby tentacle
Now I needed to chop the green onions up into pieces
I decided to cut the pickled ginger up too
Then all I needed to do was make the batter. I couldn't find any takoyaki flour but from pictures I've seen, takoyaki look fluffy so I thought I could use pancake mix as a substitute! This kind of mix is very good at making things fluffy so I knew it would be perfect.
The box of pancake mix said "use milk" but the recipe for the takoyaki said to use dashi broth, so I decided to try and make some of that myself. I didn't have kombu seaweed, but I had a nori snack pack so I used that instead. I soaked the nori snacks in water and boiled it for a bit. Then I added some bonito flakes.
After some time, dashi was born!
This is the pancake batter
Once all mixed up, it was time to cook. I cooked each takoyaki pancake in garlic oil for some extra flavor. (Pancakes are usually cooked in butter but I felt that would be inappropriate this time.)
All done!
It wasn't until the takoyaki pancakes were done that I realized I didn't have any dressing for them! I frantically looked online and learned that this food is traditionally eaten with takoyaki sauce and Kewpie mayonnaise. I didn't know about takoyaki sauce and I don't like mayonnaise, so I opted for sriracha sauce instead. But first, I wanted to taste one plain.
I wasn't following a recipe, exactly, so I kind of just eyeballed all of the ingredients as I went. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in an uneven taste. (Next time: leave it to the professionals!) I think maybe it could have used a bit more pickled ginger but all in all it was pretty okay! I think I will eat the rest with sriracha sauce though!
I drew a tentacle for this guy.
Release the Kraken!
They tasted better than before, so I was satisfied. But because these are pancakes, I decided to eat just one bite with maple syrup.
Wow!
Then I put some sriracha sauce on the pancake and covered it in maple syrup
It tasted so good I couldn't believe it! The flavors complimented each other so well! Sweet and spicy; there's some umami too! All of the tastes were represented and married the takoyaki ingredients in a delightful ceremony in my mouth.
And they all lived happily ever after~ 🐙