These octopus balls hail from the Japanese city of Osaka where they are the iconic street food. Normally made with boiled octopus chunks, we swapped in our Smoked Octopus and absolutely loved the results.

This recipe requires some special ingredients and equipment, but if you’re like us, you love a cooking project so the extra effort to track everything down will absolutely be worth it, if you don’t have these ingredients already. We've provided links to our favorite online shops, but you should always check out your local Asian marketplace if you have one nearby. Most of the products are fairly easy to find and much cheaper that way!

Once you have everything, you’ll always want to keep a couple cans of Smoked Octopus around so you can make these for your next happy hour or dinner party with friends!

Serves 2

Ingredients

(Recipe modified from recipes by @justonecookbook and @adamliaw. Follow them and learn from their wealth of knowledge!)

2 cans of Wildfish Smoked Octopus, chopped into ¼” pieces

A few green onions, chopped

1/4c katsuobushi, ground

1 tbsp beni shoga (pickled red ginger) chopped

Veggie (or other neutral) oil

1/3c tenkasu (tempura scraps)

1 cup AP flour

1 cup dashi (we used hondashi, but you can definitely make your own!)

1/4c Smoked Octopus liquid from two cans

2 eggs

1 tsp soy sauce

Kewpie Mayo #teamkewpie4ever

Takoyaki sauce, for topping

Katsuobushi, for topping

Aonori, for topping

You will also need a takoyaki pan. And æbleskiver pan works really well too!

Technique

Preheat your takoyaki pan.

Whisk flour, dashi, octopus can-liquid, salt, soy sauce, and eggs until well incorporated.

Brush pan with a generous amount of your neutral oil.

Slowly pour your batter into your pan (a little overflow is a-ok!).

Add a piece or two of your Smoked Octopus to each hole and sprinkle with your ground katsuobushi. Then sprinkle your beni shoga, tenkasu, and green onion over the top.

Let the pan do its thing for 4-5 minutes. Then slowly start rotating the balls. You’ll want to keep the balls rotating for the next 4-5 minutes to get them golden brown all over. This takes a little practice but it’s not so bad!! Stick with it- the results will be worth it!

Remove the balls from the pan, drizzle with takoyaki sauce and Kewpie mayo. Then sprinkle over your aonori, and katsuobushi. Then watch the katsuobushi dance in the heat!! 💃

They’ll be hot so you’ll have to be careful as you inhale them!!

Watch The Reel

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