My First Takopa At Home

タコパ！ Takopa!

Upon hearing the news that we will be having takopa for Friday's dinner made me rejoice! It's been a while since I had takoyaki. The takoyaki in Tokyo doesn't delight me, and I've been craving takoyaki in Osaka, where I think has the best takoyaki all over Japan. Making homemade takoyaki is another story.

It's my first time having a takoyaki party at home. In my 5 years in Japan, this was my first. I know, I was surprised too. 😅 I'm talking about making the takoyaki batter and cooking these hot octopus balls. It's been on my bucket list. Glad I could tick this off now!

My desire to have takopa probably stemmed from watching too many animes. In the TV shows I've watched, a group of friends would have a takoyaki party, or takopa in short, in their homes and they would enjoy talking and drinking and just having fun. I want to do it too but I've been hesitant in buying a takoyaki pan for a lot of reasons - no space to cook at home and I don't know how to make the batter or cook it.

I didn't take lots of photos because I was preoccupied with learning how to make the batter. My partner's sister was in charge of making the batter. Well, she's also in charge of cooking, but it's not a party if only one is cooking.

You can surely google for many recipes of how to make the batter and you can customize it too according to your liking. The main ingredients are flour, baking powder, dashi (Japanese soup stock), and eggs for the batter. My partner's sister added cabbage to make it healthy, and that's all I could remember. So much for being the apprentice for tonight's dinner. 😅

The first few balls were hard to cook, especially since we're using an electric pan - the heat wasn't distributed properly. That's one thing to note when I buy my own takoyaki pan - not the electric ones. After the first round, I kinda discovered the secret to making the takoyaki balls look nice.

My partner's family was so generous to give me the nicely made balls. It was delicious, especially since we made it together. Even without the sauce and the katsuo (dried bonito flakes), it was still flavourful.

Funny we started making the takoyaki at 6 or 7 in the evening, and we finished the whole thing at midnight. Actually, it was past midnight. 😁 Couldn't count how many rounds was it. We made so many!

I learned how to make takoyaki on that day, and enjoyed the takopa with them. My partner was sleeping the entire time, he missed the takopa and the talks that we had! They said every household in the Kansai region has a takoyaki pan, it's like it's a must. We're living in Kanto now, but I think I must get the takoyaki pan too!

Til next takopa!

Thanks for reading!
See you around! じゃあ、またね！

_{Music by Music_For_Videos from Pixabay}