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Imitation octopus balls are Japan’s newest pseudo-gourmet recipe for boiled eggs【Recipe】

Casey Baseel May 30, 2022
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Takoyaki taste without the tako.

Takoyaki are one of Japan’s best snack foods. The savory spherical seafood dumplings are inexpensive, tasty, and filling, which is pretty much the holy triumvirate of good munchie criteria.

There is, however, one potential drawback to takoyaki. The “tako” part means “octopus,” and while the oceanic octopod is commonly eaten in Japan, it might not be something you’re accustomed to, or even able to easily find at the supermarket, depending on what part of the world you’re living in.

But we recently came across a way to get most of the takoyaki flavor without any tako, thanks to a recipe for takoyaki-style eggs.

The recipe comes from the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives Group’s National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations, which, thankfully, abbreviates down to Zen-Noh due to how those terms are rendered in Japanese. The recipe is incredibly simple, and has only a handful of necessary ingredients:
● Eggs
● Takoyaki sauce
● Mayonnaise
● Aonori (powdered seaweed)
● Katsuobushi (bonito flakes)

And as short as the ingredient list is, the number of cooking steps is even smaller.

Step 1: Boil the eggs.

Step 2: Pour on the takoyaki sauce and mayo.

Step 3: Sprinkle on the aonori and katsuobushi.

That’s all there is to it. Zen-Noh recommends whipping up some takoyaki-style eggs when you’re feeling like you could use just one more side dish for a fully satisfying dinner, and if you happen to be in the habit of keeping a batch of hard-boiled eggs in your fridge, the rest of the prep work only takes a few seconds.

Taste-testing duties/privileges fell to our Japanese-language reporter Ahiru Neko, and he says if you’ve ever eaten takoyaki, the takoyaki-style eggs will taste exactly like you’d imagine they would: a mix of sweet and savory flavors, with a dash of tartness from the mayo and a bit of mature bitterness from the aonori.

As a matter of fact, it’s so tasty that he decided to turn a second takoyaki-style egg into a sharable version by slicing it first and then adding the sauce and other seasonings.

The result looks like something you’d order at an izakaya pub to share with friends while knocking back a few cold ones. It’s also just fancy enough to fool people at a potluck or barbeque that you spent a suitable amount of time and effort on it, despite being something that actually takes less than a minute to make as long as you’ve already got boiled eggs.

▼ Ideally, you want there to be at least a little yolk in every slice, since the milder white section’s flavor alone can sometimes get lost under the sauce.

▼ Zen-Noh’s tweet about the takoyaki-style eggs, in which they declare “A new wave of hard-boiled eggs has arrived.”

夕飯にもう一品ほしい…卵はある…でもフライパンを汚したくない…そんな時はゆで卵をたこ焼き風にアレンジするとラクでおいしくて見た目もにぎやかです。卵をゆでたら、たこ焼きソース、マヨ、青のり、おかかをかけるだけ。2個はペロリと食べられます。ゆで卵界にニューウェーブ、きました。 pic.twitter.com/RLm0IEsF4r

— 全農広報部【公式】日本の食を味わう (@zennoh_food) May 24, 2022

With takoyaki, and by extension takoyaki-style eggs, being a snack or side dish, you might be wondering what to do for the main course. Don’t worry, Zen-Noh has a ridiculously easy recipe for that too, plus one for a very unique baked fruit dessert.

Reference: Twitter/@zennoh_food
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[ Read in Japanese ]