Yakisoba

Yakisoba is one of those simple asian fast food meals that’s stir-fried and oh so tasty… except for a while the only yakisoba I ever really had was from restaurants where they did twists like seafood yakisoba or something elaborate so I came away with a ‘yeeccchhhhhh’ feeling. Maybe the preparation wasn’t good, I’m not sure. My interest in yakisoba was piqued one day by a dish where they stuff yakisoba into a hot dog. Weird right? Starch in starch. But it kind of works cause of the difference in flavor. The yakisoba in the picture looked pretty tasty to me so I started checking out recipes and it looked pretty simple. So I gave it a crack and started minimally based on a friend’s mom’s recipe. What you’re gonna need:

• Yakisoba noodles
• Veggies
• Meat
• Tonkatsu sauce

For the yakisoba noodles, I picked up a ready to go bag made by Sun Noodles from my local Don Quijote (DonQui for short, say it like donkey). For future yakisoba dinners, I’ll probably pick up the economy pack from Costco. I noticed some brands requires you to do a quick boil in water to cook them and to boil away the excess starch. Check the packaging to be sure.

I think one of the veggies that you must have is cabbage. Gives it a little crunch and cooked cabbage has this velvety texture that gives a satisfying bite when you’re eating them with yakisoba. Well, I made a mistake here. I bought Napa cabbage instead and its not quite the same. A little limp and a little stringy. Get the regular cabbage. Chop that up to bite size pieces.

You can put any other veggie you like and originally I was going to leave it at cabbage but I had an excess amount of carrots in the fridge so I julienned a section. You often see carrots in yakisoba as well. I don’t think you want to cut these into bite size pieces since it’ll take longer to cook. Since you’ll be stir-frying, quick cooking is what you’re looking for.

Alright, I’m a Hawaii girl, I love my Spam. In particular this flavor that Hormel makes that’s flavored with Tabasco. It makes the dish spicy without extra effort.

Dice the Spam up into bite size pieces, make them as big as you want them. I diced it a little thinly here, next time I’m slicing them a little thicker.

Now for the sauce which is the heart of the dish. Don’t skimp on this ingredient, if anything splurge on this part. I’ve been wanting to try out this particular tomato and vegetable based sauce for a while, its a made in Japan product that people swear by. I mean, when you see a Japanese boy shout with glee when he sees this bottle at the local Safeway (grocery store) and pick it up to rub his face against it like a beloved cat… you know its gotta be good… or you just have weird friends. I know the Safeway in Manoa stocks this product, not sure about the other ones. I picked up mines from the Dillingham Marukai. Bulldog makes several sauces so make sure you pick up the one that says tonkatsu. I know they make another one for okonomiyaki.

On with the cooking~

Toss in a little oil into your pan, I’d say about medium heat, adjust as you go along. Brown your meat until its starting to show a little color, then toss in the veggies to cook through. Stir and keep the food moving. If you happen to have a hardier veggie, toss that in first before you throw in the softer veggies. This way the food will be cooked through at about the same time. After a few minutes of cooking and the vegetables have started to becomes a little limp and translucent, grab your noodles and put that into the pan. I had to loosen and “fluff” the noodles from the package with my fingers otherwise I would’ve ended up with a rectangular piece of yakisoba.

Cook the entire thing for several minutes so that everything gets mixed and the noodles get a chance to heat through. As you can see from my pictures… a serving for two people needs a bigger frying pan. If you got a wok, use it. Once the noodles are heated through and have limped a little, add in the sauce. I can’t say how much sauce to put except to your own taste. If anything, add a little, toss and coat and judge. I think I put a good 2-3 tablespoons worth into the dish. That’s about 1/4 of the bottle or so. Toss, let noodles and sauce sizzle a bit, serve. I think I’ve seen kamaboko (fish cake) used in yakisoba as well. I didn’t have it on hand so that didn’t get added.