Noren
Chef's Armoury is a store in Rosebery that specializes in high quality Japanese knives. They also have a good selection of Japanese grocery items and other cooking equipments.
Once in a while, they have free demo class on Japanese cuisine, and today's demo class is on Takoyaki - a popular street food in Japan.
Piping hot and drizzled with lots of mayo, brown sauce, sprinkled with lots of ao-nori and katsuo bushi...hmmmm.....
The demo class runs for about an hour, and we are each given a recipe handout to take home.
Let's begin the class !
First, this is what you need to start making takoyaki :
L-R (clockwise) : Takoyaki pan & utensils : batter ready to go : boiled octopus : other fillings
You do need a special takoyaki pan, it is made of heavy cast iron and they are quite expensive. Chef's Armoury sells a starter pack which included a pan, oil brush and metal picks for about $65-ish.
The batter is made by mixing a low gluten flour and kuzu starch, eggs, dashi, spring onions, and seasoning.
It is best to rest the batter in the fridge for at least 1 hour to get a better batter consistency.
Octopus is the traditional filling for takoyaki of course, what is a takoyaki without tako (octopus) ? ^_^
But of course, you can get creative and play around with other fillings. Today we have some kamaboko (fish cake), mochi (rice cake), and some prawns.
Greasing the hot takoyaki pan, hot ! hot ! hot !
Takoyaki in the making
It's like playing Cooking Mama LOL
Pour in the batter to about half way, throw in your fillings, top it up with more batter and over fill it.
Let it cook for a while, they you start pushing the sides into the individual moulds.
When you have tucked everything in...gentle yet swiftly, flip the balls over *FLIP!*
Perfect round balls !! Hooray !!
Itadakimasu !! \^o^/
Drizzle and sprinkle with the condiments and it's tasting time ^_^
Lucky dip takoyaki
It is a lucky dip takoyaki, since we have no idea which ball has what filling, they look the same LOL
We got one with octopus and the other with mochi. Mochi in takoyaki ? Excellent idea !!
It's very nice....chewy mochi and the soft baked batter...best !
Audience participation to try making their own takoyaki :)
While they are cooking, I wonder around the little shop to see what else have the got.
Sauces, matcha and matcha making tools ; Wagyu Sirloin *drooolll*
All you need to make your own sushi
They also sell Genmai Brown Rice here....reminds me of the genmai they served with tonkotsu in Japan...yummm...
Beside demo classes like this, Chef's Armoury also runs Japanese cooking classes.
The next cooking classes would be on Japanese Breakfast and Izakaya Food. The cooking classes runs in smaller group of about 8people and it cost $95 per class.
Thinking of maybe doing the breakfast one...hmmmm....
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