Recipe for Dorayaki, Doraemon's favorite snack

When I wrote about dorayaki, the sweet pancake-sandwich that is cat-robot Doraemon’s favorite snack for the Japan Times back in October, I promised to post a recipe for making the little pancakes. Well finally here it is! Read my Japan Time piece for the interesting background while you ponder what’s basically a pancake batter with mirin and soy sauce in it. (At the end of the article I do mention that you can use instant pancake mix, but the recipe below yields much better results and is not that much more difficult.)

I have approached this recipe in what some might consider a rather unusual way. The important point is the ratio between the egg, sugar and flour. Since egg sizes differ, the surest way to make sure you get the right ratio is weigh your eggs first (cracked or uncracked - the shells don’t weigh enough to make a big difference) and then measure out your flour and sugar accordingly.

Whenever I have a recipe that uses mirin, someone invariably asks whether it can be omitted or substituted for. In this case, there really is no substitute. The combination of mirin and soy sauce gives the doroyaki pancake its distinct dark brown color, umami and slight saltiness. If you can’t use mirin for whatever reason, just leave it out.

Makes 12 dorayaki pancakes (6 dorayaki) about 12cm / 4.5 inches in diameter

Ingredients

2 ‘large’ eggs white superfine or castor sugar (see instructions)cake flour or all-purpose flour (see instructions) 1/3 teaspoon baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) 1 tablespoon runny honey 1 tablespoon mirin 1 teaspoon soy sauce1 tablespoon vegetable oil water additional vegetable oil for cookingfilling of your choice, such as Not So Sweet Tsubuan (sweet azuki bean paste).

Equipment needed:

handheld whiskbowls for mixing and measuringkitchen scalefrying pan or flat crepe pan with smooth non-stick coatingkitchen paper towel spatula a cloth kitchen towel that has been moistened with water and wrung out a pair of wooden cooking chopsticks (optional)

Instructions

Measure the weight of the eggs with your scale. Note down that number. Set aside. Measure out the same weight as the eggs in sugar in another container. For instance if your eggs weigh 100 grams, measure out 100 grams of sugar. (For ounces people: if your eggs weigh 3.5 oz, weight out 3.5 oz of sugar.) Set aside. Measure out the same weight as the eggs plus 50% in flour. For instance if your eggs weighed 100 grams in total,, measure out 150 grams of flour. (For ounces people: if your eggs weigh 3.5 ounces, measure out 5.25 ounces of flour.) Add the baking soda to the flour and mix with a fork or your still-dry whisk. Set aside. Crack the eggs into your mixing bowl and mix with the whisk until the eggs are broken up but not too frothy. Add the sugar, honey, mirin, soy sauce and the 1 tablespoon of oil, and mix well until the sugar has melted and there are no lumps. Add half of the flour-baking soda mixture; mix well until the flour is amalgamated. Add the rest of the flour slowly. Point: Don’t over-mix or the pancakes will be a bit tough. Add water (about 1/4 cup, or 50-60 cc) little by little until the batter reaches the consistency of heavy cream. Cover the bowl, and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. (You can make thi the day before and let it rest overnight.) When you are ready to cook the pancakes, heat up a non-stick frying pan or crepe pan over medium-low heat. Lay the moistened kitchen towel next to your cooker. When the pan is hot, drizzle a little oil in it, and spread it around with a wadded up piece of kitchen towel. (I use wooden chopsticks to hold the kitchen towel.) The surface of the pan or griddle should only be just lightly coated with oil. If the pan gets too hot (if it stars smoking, or your first pancake gets burned) take it off the heat and put the hot bottom for a second on the moistened kitchen towel to cool it down. Pour the pancake batter on the griddle to your desired size. (For a 4.5 inch /12cm dorayaki it’s about 2 tablespoons.) Let it cook without turning until tha pancake is cooked through; the top surface should be nearly dry. (If you turn it too fast the bottom surface will be mottled rather than an even brown.) Turn over and cook on the other side for a few seconds while pressing down lightly. Remove from the pan with a spatula. Let the pancakes cool before filling. When filling, put the nice dark brown side on the outside and the pale side on the inside. Put about a tablespoon of filling in the center of one pancake, press the second pancake on top and press very lightly to form a nicely rounded sandwich.

The dorayaki pancakes can be frozen quite successfully, and will keep for a couple of months well wrapped. I prefer to freeze the pancakes before filling them, although some people freeze the whole filled dorayaki.

The traditional dorayaki filling is tsubuan or sweet azuki bean paste. See Not So Sweet Tsubuan (sweet azuki bean paste). Cream dorayaki is filled with a mixture of half tsubuan and half whipped cream. Butter doroyaki is filled with tsubutan and a pat of salted butter. It’s nice if the pancake is warmed up before making the sandwich, so the butter melts while you’re eating the dorayaki.Ichigo dorayaki is filled with tsubuan and a sliced strawberry. If you like ichigo daifuku you’ll love this. A small bit of whipped cream can be added too. Try filling a dorayaki with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream, with or without the additional of a teaspoon of tsubuan. If you have some saikyo miso (see Miso Basics try mixing it in a 2:1 ratio with honey, and spreading it sparingly between the pancakes. Not at all traditional but very yummy. Caramel sauce, spread very thinly, is a great (and non-traditional) filling too, perhaps with some sliced strawberries. …and whatever other fillings you can imagine!

Dorayaki pancakes are quite tasty plain too; just warm up for a minute in a dry frying pan, or in a toaster overn.

Bonus: Doraemon enjoying a dorayaki.

If you’re unfamiliar with Doraemon, read more about him on Wikipedia. There are also a lot of Doraemon clips on YouTube.

Doraemon is played by French movie star Jean Reno in a series of live-action commercials for Toyota in Japan. Yeah, I don’t get it either. But they are funny in a surreal way.

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Takoyaki, the great street snack that's fun to make at home

[Note: I am reposting this article from the archives because of this paragraph. Several people have said in the comments that a Danish Æbleskiver or ebleskiver pan would be a good substitute for a takoyaki pan. You also see this mentioned on other sites. I finally got a chance to hold a real ebleskiver pan in my hands, and the bad news is that I am not sure it really would make a good substitute. The pan makes round cakes shaped similarly to takoyaki, for sure, but they are maybe 5 to 6 times the size of a takoyaki. So what you’d end up with are huge dumplings, which would need to be cooked a lot longer than takoyaki do. One of the main features of a takoyaki is the contrast between the slightly crispy outside which gradually softens under the sauce, and the just-cooked, piping hot creamy interior. I really don’t think you can get that with a huge er, ball. But if you have tried it for yourself, please let me know.

Another note: The video I mention below that was so great has been withdrawn due to copyright violation from YouTube. I’ll replace it with more complete instructions as soon as I can, but in the meantime you can still make takoyaki from the recipe.

This was originally published in July 2007.]

Takoyaki is the small, round cousin of okonomiyaki, and like okonomiyaki it originated in Osaka. It’s basically a flavored batter with a tiny piece of octopus (tako) inside, and is a quintessential street food snack.

Since my family is from the Tokyo-Saitama area (the Kanto area), this puts me at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to making takoyaki. Sure I’ve had it dozens of times, but I can’t say I have had the chance of seeing it made really up close. With okonomiyaki, my ex-brother in law was from Osaka and we got to enjoy his okonomiyaki making prowess, which was one of his few redeeming features, quite a lot. But his tabletop cooking skills did not extend to takoyaki.

I do have some books and so on dedicated to the subject. But I didn’t really ‘get’ how to make takoyaki until I stumbled upon a terrific how-to video. It’s far better than anything I can come up with myself, so I would simply like to transcribe and translate it for your benefit, with my notes. The recipe and method described turn out terrific takoyaki - piping hot, slightly crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside.

Takoyaki making is quite time consuming, and the little balls are best eaten while piping hot, so I recommend a tabletop model over a takoyaki plate you put on the stovetop. Also note that if you have an electric, ceramic top or induction range (as I do), a regular takoyaki plate will not function properly since there won’t be enough contact surface. My takoyaki maker is a fairly inexpensive single-purpose electric model. You can also get fancier models with interchangeable plates for grilling, teppanyaki, etc besides the takoyaki plate.

Takoyaki makers are available at Japanese-oriented electronic or housewares stores. Cheap ones are also available on eBay, but be aware that most are Japanese 100W - 50/60hz models, which will not work as-is in Europe. They will work on U.S. 110W but could potentially be a fire hazard, so for safety you should use them with a transformer. (If you’re buying a takoyaki maker in Tokyo, be sure to let the salesperson know you will be using it overseas. If you’re shopping in Akihabara they’re used to dealing with this situation.)

It’s generally not recommended to use takoyaki plates on a tabletop gas cooker by the way, because the plate can trap heat underneath and potentially damage the cooker surface. So if you do get a takoyaki plate, just use it on your stovetop.

A brush or a wad of cotton wool or paper towel to oil the takoyaki plate. You can get a dedicated takoyaki brush, but I just use a makeshift paper towel ‘brush’. A wooden skewer or two to flip the takoyaki. Never use metal skewers, which can damage the surface of the plate. Cocktail sticks are not good either since your hand will be too close to the hot surface of the griddle.A small ladle to pour the batter. So, here is the video that teaches you all! It’s a segment from an NHK program called _Takmeshite gatten_ (????????), which sort of means “Try it out and be convinced”, a show that tries out various theories and methods (not just related to cooking) and sees what the best way is. Anyway, watch the video all the way through first. The title of the segment is “Make pro quality takoyaki at home!”

(The video has been removed since it’s no longer functioning. I’ll replace it with my own instructions as soon as possible. You can still use the recipe below though.)

This batter is really easy to make, and yields great takoyaki! No fiddling about with grated nagaimo or anything, and no need to buy special okonomiyaki flour. They say it’s for 4 people. I’ve found makes about 60 balls in total (allowing for some mistakes).

300g / 10.5 oz hakuriki ko (low-gluten white flour): use cake flour (preferred) or all-purpose flour3 eggs1 liter (4 1/4 cups) of ice water, with the cubes strained out before adding to the mix3 grams salt (about 2/3 tsp.) 1/2 tsp. kombu dashi stock granules1/2 tsp. katsuo dashi stock granules 2 tsp. soy sauce

My adjustments: I made dashi stock using the cold water method instead of using the dashi stock granules, and increased the salt to 5 grams to compensate. The dashi was ice cold from being in the fridge anyway, so I just put in a few ice cubes. The water/dashi is ice cold to prevent the gluten in the flour from developping. If you are using dashi granules, you can just use a teaspoon of one type (such as Hondashi (which is a brand name by the way)).

To make the batter: Beat the eggs, and mix together with the ice water and dashi stock granules (or ice cold dashi) and soy sauce. Add the flour, and mix together lightly. Don’t worry about getting all the lumps out - it’s best not to overmix the batter. So easy!

You just need a small amount of boiled octopus legs. It should ideally be cut up so each piece gets a bit of the suckers, for texture.

Now, call me blasphemous, but I do not think you necessarily need octopus to make takoyaki. You just need a little bit of something to provide a change in texture. I have used things like cut up chikuwa, squid legs, or (gasp, horror) wieners instead of the octopus. (My experimentation in this area came about when the fishmonger refused to sell me a single octopus leg, and I didn’t want to deal with a whole ugly octopus.) Whatever you use, just have it cut up into little squares and ready to go.

You need some flavorless cooking oil to oil the takoyaki pan. I use peanut oil.

The points:

Heat up the pan before starting.Oil the little sections (they are using a dedicated oiling brush, but you can use a wadded up paper towel or a wad of cotton wool held with chopsticks. Be sure to oil the top of the pan too.) Pour in the batter - don’t worry if it overflows a bit. You don’t need to fill all the compartments either (I find that dealing with 14 or 15 compartments at a time is my maximum. If you are just starting out, try about 8 or 10. For some reason, all Japanese takoyaki makers have 18 compartments.) As soon as the batter is poured, drop in the octopus bits, one per compartment.When the outsides are sort of dried out, cut through the connected bits (where the batter ran out) and turn them over about 90 degrees with the wooden skewer. If you turn them too early the takoyaki will collapse and turn into a sad, ragged lump of goo. It takes a bit of practice to gauge when to turn the balls over, but you soon get the hang of it. Turn the balls over all the way. Keep flipping then round and round with the skewer.If the ball has a little hole, add a tiny bit of batter to an empty section and put the ball hole-side down into the batter (around 2:20-2:40) The takoyaki are done with they feel lighter when you poke and turn them with the skewer, and are lightly browned a a bit crispy on the outside.The key is for the takoyaki to be hollow on the inside. This allows the insides to steam, which cooks them nicely while retaining a creamy texture.

It only takes them a minute or so to make the takoyaki in the video, but it is edited down. I find it takes about 7-8 minutes per batch. Your results may vary.

Serve immediately with chopsticks or cocktail sticks, and dipping sauces.

When you buy takoyaki, they usually come smothered in okonomiyaki or ‘Bulldog’ sauce, sometimes mayonnaise, bonito flakes, powdered aonori (a green nori) and pickled red ginger. But I really like the less-is-more suggestions. They have three dipping sauces:

Okonomiyaki or ‘Bulldog’ sauce, the conventional dipping sauce. You can mix this with mayonnaise. (My suggestion is to buy either one type of ‘Bulldog’ sauce and adjust if necessary for things like okonomiyaki and takoyaki instead of buying a bunch of sauces that are labeled as okonomiyaki sauce and so on. They all taste fairly similar.) Nihai-zu: 150ml (about 2/3 cup) dashi stock, 1 Tbs. soy sauce, 2 tsp. vinegar. This is my favorite - the slight sourness with the saltiness is very refreshing.Osumashi (clear soup): 500ml (a bit more than 2 cups) dashi stock, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. soy sauce. This is good if it’s ice cold, to counteract the piping hot takoyaki.

You could also try: regular American ‘steak sauce’ mixed with a bit of mayonnaise; oyster sauce; sweet chili sauce; barbeque sauce; even olive oil mixed with salt. Experiment!

Once you have had freshly made, hot off the griddle takoyaki, you will never buy those frozen dough balls again. Cold takoyaki can be reheated, but really - they are so much superior freshly made, that I never bother to make extra.

I do hope the video doesn’t get taken down - if it is I’ll replace the instructions here accordingly. In the meantime, watch it a few times and witha little practice, you’ll be on your way to takoyaki perfection! (Footnote: At the end of the video, the celebrities each write a little poem (haiku-like but not quite) about takoyaki. A bit corny perhaps, but it made me think about writing little poems to some of my memorable meals!)

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Instagram: Pre-dinner snack, Pa Jin:

With the launch of my website and blog, I’m hoping to use this space to do more image-based posts, ranging from Instagram iPhone pics such as the above, to occasional non-food-related pics.

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