An Osaka Specialty: Ika-yaki (Squid Pancakes). Ikayaki "Squid pancake" is one of the popular Osaka soul food! It is really fluffy and tasty, and great with cabbage! The taste is similar to Okonomiyaki.

These are the ika-yaki sold at a certain department store, and occasionally at food stalls during summer festivals. I found out just recently that this is only sold in the Kansai area. In other regions, 'ika-yaki' means a whole grilled squid! You can have An Osaka Specialty: Ika-yaki (Squid Pancakes) using 8 ingredients and 7 steps. Here is how you cook it.

Ingredients of An Osaka Specialty: Ika-yaki (Squid Pancakes)

You need 100 grams of - 180 grams Squid.
Prepare 140 grams of Cake flour.
It's 10 grams of Bread (strong) flour.
It's 5 grams of Katakuriko.
You need 1 tsp of Dashi stock granules.
You need 200 grams of Water.
Prepare 1 of Vegetable oil.
You need 1 of Okonomiyaki sauce and takoyaki sauce.

Ika means squid, shoga means ginger and yaki means grill or fry. This recipe was given to me by a Japanese friend. This pancake style is prepared like folded crêpes and made of chopped squid, hard dough, Worcestershire sauce and sometimes egg, and is cooked and pressed between two iron plates. Embrace all things tentacled with this easy and flavoursome ika yaki recipe.

An Osaka Specialty: Ika-yaki (Squid Pancakes) step by step

Slice the body of the prepped squid into rounds, then cut into 1cm dice..
Combine the flours, dashi stock granules, and water, and mix until it's slightly sticky (meaning the gluten in the flour has formed)..
Add the squid to the batter, and leave for at least 30 minutes. If the batter becomes too firm, add a little water so that it's the consistency of crepe batter..
Add oil in a pan, and pour in the batter (You can add an egg here to upgrade the pancake to a deluxe version.).
When one side is browned, turn the pancake over. Cook the other side while pressing down hard on the pancake with your spatula..
When the pancake is cooked, spread the combined okonomiyaki and takoyaki sauces, fold in half and press..
If you add too much squid, the pancakes will be hard to cook. I'm not too good at cooking these myself. If you're not used to making pancakes, try cooking one with just a little squid added to the batter..

Ikayaki. (Grilled Squid, Ika Yaki, いか焼き, イカ焼き, 烏賊焼). The squids should be served immediately once they are off the grill. Note that you can also have crepe style ika-yaki, but not in this post. The ingredient, locally fished, is cheap. A freshly cleaned pocket of calamar.