Having a ball making takoyaki

My apartment smells like a fish market right now. Eeps!

It turns out that the smell of takoyaki lingers. I made these delicious balls of dough--with octopus meat inside!--with some friends yesterday. Twenty-four hours, lots of air freshener and a burning candle later, my place still smells a bit gaggy. (The weather is beautiful today, so I'll have to open the windows. All of them.)

Anyway, it was worth it. The taste is good, and it's a lot of fun to make.

I first ate takoyaki back in August; perhaps you remember that I wrote about it. My first time to actually make takoyaki was last month at Okawame Jr. High. I never blogged about that, so I'm going to take this opportunity to show you some pictures and share with you the recipe for this popular Japanese food:

First, you mix up the batter. It's a lot like pancake mix -- eggs, flour and water. You pour that into the circular molds in the takoyaki maker.

Then, you add ginger, shrimp cracker crumbs, cabbage--and whatever else your heart desires--into the mix. Oh, and that includes the tako (which is "octopus" in Japanese.) Tako is pretty important in the making of takoyaki!

Don't you just love the little octopus guy on the takoyaki maker? Precious.

As the dough cooks, it forms balls that you continuously flip around.

When the takoyaki is done, you cover it with sauce, mayonnaise and fish flakes. Yum yum.

And then it's time to eat your beautiful masterpiece...

So there you go. Now you can make takoyaki! ;)

It helps to have a takoyaki maker though (like the one that was already in my apartment when I moved in.) And it also helps to wear a gas mask!! Only kidding. Kind of!