Akashiyaki (Tamagoyaki Octopus Balls)
Cuisine: Japanese
Region: 兵庫県
Servings: 4人分（約40個）
Akashiyaki (Tamagoyaki Octopus Balls) is a home-style staple dish. Ingredients and step-by-step instructions are below, with notes for home cooking.
Ingredients
- Boiled octopus 120 g
- Eggs 3
- Dashi (kombu and katsuobushi) 400 ml
- Cake flour 60 g
- Jin-ko (wheat starch / ukiko) 60 g
- Neutral oil as needed
- [Dipping broth] Dashi 600 ml
- [Dipping broth] Light soy sauce 2 tsp
- [Dipping broth] Mirin 2 tsp
- [Dipping broth] Salt 1/3 tsp
- Mitsuba as needed
Steps
- Cut the octopus into 1 cm cubes. If using raw octopus, rub with salt to remove slime, rinse, blanch briefly, then cut.
- Warm the dipping-broth ingredients in a pot, taste, and adjust with salt to a bit stronger than a clear soup.
- Sift the flour and jin-ko together into a bowl. Add the cooled dashi little by little, whisking until smooth.
- In another bowl beat the eggs well, then mix into the batter from step 3 until silky. It should be a loose, pourable batter.
- Heat a takoyaki pan (or an Akashi copper plate if you have one) well and oil each well generously. Pour batter to the rim of each well and drop in one piece of octopus.
- After 1–2 minutes, when the edges set, run a skewer around the rim to free the batter and give a half turn. Tuck overflow back in and half-turn again to shape into a ball.
- When lightly browned and plump, they are done. They are soft—transfer gently with a spatula or board. Float mitsuba in warm dipping broth and soak to eat.
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Notes
Jin-ko (ukiko) is wheat starch; it stays soft when heated and gives Akashiyaki its signature fluffy, melt-in-the-mouth texture. Find it at baking-supply shops or online. Potato starch works in a pinch but yields a slightly chewier result.
The batter is soft and hard to turn, so use plenty of oil. Wait until the edges set before flipping.
Serve the dipping broth hot or cold as you like. Some shops also offer sauce.
Traditionally Akashiyaki is served lined up on a wooden board shaped like a geta clog.
Origin and history
Akashiyaki is a local dish of Akashi, Hyogo: soft, egg-rich batter with octopus baked into balls and eaten dipped in dashi. Locals call it “tamagoyaki.”
Akashi has long been a port town known for Akashi octopus. Late in the Edo period, the area made imitation coral beads (“Akashi-dama”) for hairpins by setting egg white; leftover yolks, the story goes, inspired a dish of octopus cooked in egg batter.
The batter—flour plus jin-ko, eggs, and dashi—is so soft it nearly falls apart. It is also said to have been a model for Osaka takoyaki that appeared in early Showa. Serving the balls on a board and dipping them in warm dashi is the Akashi way.