I Love Takoyaki Parties!

We finally got around to buying a takoyaki maker, and decided it might be fun to make use of it for dinner on a rainy day like today! I've mentioned before that takoyaki means grilled octopus, but when using the machine at home, you can get really creative with what you put inside the batter.

We have the usual toppings here: octopus, cabbage, mayonnaise and takoyaki sauce. But, we've also got ingredients to make some with tuna, corn and cheese. We also thought we'd experiment with jalapenos and cheese to have something similar to jalapeno poppers! Yum!

As you can see below, the first step is to add the batter, overfilling the molds. Then, you can add whatever ingredients you like! As the balls cook, you flip them with a little skewer. Then, once they're finished, you pull them out, add mayonnaise and sauce, and devour!

I made sure to get a shot of Chad filling the machine for the fans of his ongoing shirtless activities.

We're considering making an entire calendar of shirtless Chad shots.

Many Japanese also add dashi (fish flakes) and green onions to their takoyaki, but it's really up to the person ordering/eating/making. Below you can see our jalapeno-yaki--delicious!


We're really into the idea of trying more and more ingredients in the future. Perhaps pizza flavors with bacon, cheese and pizza sauce? Or taco-flavored with beef, taco seasoning, cheese, lettuce, sour cream...? It seems to me Japan is excellent at making strange-sounding foods delicious, so why shouldn't we have a try? I've even heard about sweet versions using pancake mix and syrup. I'm foreseeing blueberry pancake balls, maybe chocolate chip ones dipped in chocolate and with sprinkles... the possibilities are endless!