Japanese Recipe: Yaki Soba

Does this ever happen to you?: You try to do the right thing nutrition-wise. You mosey down to the local Farmer’s Market and stock up on a wide assortment of veggies with the best intentions of using them in various healthy dishes. Alas, you discover one of three things:

• You’re too damn lazy to cook.
• There’s not enough time to cook healthy.
• You don’t know how to use those veggies.

So what starts out as the best culinary intention ends up as slimy goo in your fridge’s crisper drawer. But wait, there’s an answer to your conundrum: Yaki Soba.

Yaki Soba is, in essence, a Japanese noodle stir-fry. Yaki means “grilled” and soba are the buck wheat noodles, that believe it or not, are totally absent in this recipe. Soba gets tacked on the end of noodle dishes which, surprisingly, don’t include them on the ingredient list. Hiyashi chuu soba is another noodle dish made without soba. The Japanese use the term soba to describe any thin noodle that’s not udon.

The ingredients used for Yaki Soba aren’t set in stone. Although there is a basic list, nothing’s stopping you from a little creative garbage disposal. I think the integral ingredients for Yaki soba are the sauce (tonkatsu sauce) and noodles. If you can’t buy tonkatsu sauce where you live, I’ve included a recipe I found online for it below. *Note: Always taste test any sauce before dumping it on a meal. If you don’t like the tonkatsu, use the simpler sauce recipe provided.

Yaki Soba

Basic Ingredients

• 4 fresh shitake mushrooms, stems removed and thinly sliced
• 1/2 small head of Chinese or regular cabbage, thinly sliced
• 1 carrot, julienned
• 3 green onions, sliced long strips
• 1 green or red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 3 stems of asparagus, woody parts removed and cut in half lengthwise
• 1-2 packages Chinese egg noddles (the fresh variety if you can get ‘em are the best)
• 1 bottle or 1 recipe of tonkatsu sauce

Other Ideas for Ingredients:

• Celery
• Squash
• Regular ’shrooms
• Eggplant
• Baby Tomatoes
• Any veggie you have in the fridge that isn’t a member of the Mold Society
• Seaweed (ao-nori, nori, hijinki, wakame)
• Seafood (shrimp, octopus, squid, crab, clams, etc.)
• Fresh or pickled ginger

Tonkatsu Sauce Recipe

• 1/4 Cup Ketchup
• 4 tsp Rice wine
• 4 tsp Soy sauce
• 4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 4 tsp Sugar
• 4 tsp Rice wine vinegar
• 4 tsp Yellow mustard
• 1/4 tsp Ground allspice
• 1/8 tsp Ground clove
• 1/4 tsp Garlic powder

Directions:

1. Mix ingredients in a medium bowl till well blended. Let stand for 30 minutes to let flavors develop.

Simple Sauce:

• 2 tbsp. soy sauce
• 2 tbsp. sake

Directions for Yaki Soba:

1.Boil the noodles by following the instructions on the package.
2.Stir fry the veggies with a bit of oil in a wok or large frying pan until the cabbage becomes slightly translucent. If you’re not using cabbage, cook until the veggies are tender.
3.Add noodles and gently work the veggies and noodles together. If you’re using seafood, add it at this time. Add sauce to taste ( I like a lot of sauce but then again growing up I was known as the Ketchup Queen) Cook until the sauce bubbles slightly, turn off heat and serve immediately topped (optionally) with seaweed and/or ginger.

Wasn’t that fast? Gotta love stir fry for it’s ease, simplicity and use of healthy ingredients. The great thing is that you could shop specifically ahead of time for this recipe or you could have that one lazy day after work that you don’t feel like doing crap and whip up a decent meal under 30 minutes.

I like Yaki Soba because it’s:

• So easy and quick to make.
• Inexpensive.
• Healthy and makes using veggies easy.
• Gets rid of the dregs of the salad drawer.

I’ve got zero complaints on this recipe.

Difficulty: Easy
Time: 30 minutes or less
Ingredient Availability: Easy