Artery attack! Various fried Japanese balls.

The Japanese diet is usually lauded as the paragon of a healthy diet, low in animal fat and dairy, high in fish and soy and not much frying (apart from tempura of course). Well, whilst this may be true of the ideal ‘traditional’ Japanese diet, many urban younger Japanese now subsist on cheap convenience food from chain restaurants and stores that are pumped with preservatives and leached of all nutrition. Japan is the home of fermented soya beans, but it is also the home of the instant noodle. My two dishes this week are of this latter ilk, both now lodged firmly in the repertoire of everyday Japanese food, but both only to be eaten in moderation if you are to stand any chance of becoming one of those fabled wisened grannies or grandpas.

First up is the dish of the week: Japanese pumpkin croquettes or kabocha korokke. We followed a recipe that had us make balls of mashed-up pumpkin, onion and cream, coat them in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, and then deep-fry them until cooked through, browned on the outside and a zillion calories a piece. Instructions were also to insert a melting fatty core into the centre of these obesity bombs– a chunk of cheese. My first korokke were a little underdone and resulted in a disappointing lack of oozing cheese – the oil temperature must have been to hot, browning the outsides faster than the inside could cook. Maybe the ball shape was to fault. Most korokke in Japan are sort of oval patty shape. The second batch was probably the best, and the third lot of balls were left languishing in sub-frying-temperature oil until they started to physically disintegrate. Remarkably, even these had been furtively gobbled up by the end of the evening by my guests. Although I found these croquettes generally disappointing, tasting of oily pumpkin and not much else, a little Worcestershire sauce on the side worked wonders.

The kabocha korokke served as a starter while drinking Kamikaze cocktails. The ‘main course’ was not pumpkin balls, but octopus ones. These takoyaki are a popular street snack eaten throughout the country but synonymous with Osaka in west Japan. No Osaka person should be without a takoyaki making set so I bought one for my Osaka-jin husband for Christmas. This was its first outing. You pour floury mixture into all the semispherical holes in the special electric hotplate, insert a piece of octopus, a piece of the ever-mysterious konnyaku (this is usually only added in Osaka), sprinkle with pickled ginger and spring onion, then as the dough rises swivel the lump around for the other side to cook, making a ball. Put on plate, cover with special brown sauce, mayonnaise, bonito flakes and powdered seaweed (aonori).

Voila! A delicious, if fatty, snack. I refuse to even touch such a horrible looking creature as the octopus, so we also made balls filled with prawns, which were even better. We provide some respite to our guests’ arteries by serving a nice green salad and apple (albeit caramelized and with ice cream) for pudding. Barring an alcohol-fueled self-slicing of my finger, a ball (or ten) was had by all!