Yakisoba

I realised I have been neglecting you. It's not that I haven't been baking or cooking, it's just that I haven't posted up the posts yet and also that I'm busy in the midst of preparing for some upcoming event(s). 

In conjunction with our monthly Family Day, I'm cooking up this yummilicious one-dish meal - Yakisoba from norecipes.

Yakisoba is a common street food in Japan which is literally, fried noodles. You can literally see this cooked on gigantic cast iron griddles. The smell of yakisoba would probably remind you of this sweet and tart fragrance that is derived from chuno sauce. This sauce is a condiment poured from tonkatsu to salads and is used in various Japanese cuisine like hamburg steak or Japanese curry. Chuno sauce itself is rather flavourful as it is sweet, tangy, savoury and spicy. According to Marc of norecipes, the best substitute for chuno sauce would be a mixture of worcestershire sauce and ketchup. As for the proportions, I guess it would be a self-taste test.

Ingredients:

280g ramen

2 tsp vegetable oil

150g carrots

60g onion

60g cabbage, shredded

30g scallions

3 tbsp chuno sauce (mixture of worchestershire sauce and ketchup)

1/2 tbsp oyster sauce

1/4 tsp ground white pepper

5g bonito flakes

seaweed garnishing

Japanese pickles

Method:

1. Boil the noodles for about 1 minutes lesser than what the package directions tell you. When the noodles are done, drain and rinse well with cold water, using your fingers to agitate the noodles. Drain off as much water as possible. Toss the noodles with 2 tsp of oil to avoid them from sticking.
2. Prep the vegetables and make the sauce by whisking the chuno substitute sauce, oyster sauce and white pepper.
3. Heat a pan over medium-high heat until hot and then add 2 tsp oil to stir fry carrots, onions and cabbage stem.
4. Stir fry until carrots are tender and add the remaining cabbage and scallions. Continue to stir fry until cabbage is cooked.
5. Add the noodles and sauce and stir fry the noodles to coat them well with the sauce.
6. Sprinkle the bonito flakes onto the noodles and continue tossing until the noodles are uniform in colour and you can smell the sauce beginning to caramelize.
7. Plate the yakisoba and sprinkle the seaweed garnishing and Japanese pickles to garnish.

After cooking this yummilicious one-dish meal, here's my notes:

• you can make your own chuno sauce by adding 3 parts worcestershire sauce to 1 part ketchup. This is a good way not to buy more bottled sauce ;)
• if you like your somen to be a tad spicy like me, I marinated the meat with special spicy sauce that is my favourite. 
• I added sliced shitake mushrooms to add to the flavour of the somen.
• DO NOT omit the oil that loosen the somen as this will cause the somen to be in a clump.

I love the sweet, tangy and savoury flavour of home-made chuno sauce. It really goes very well with this yakisoba. If you are in a rush but yet want yummilicious food, try this!

I'm submitting this post to Asian Food Fest #1 Oct 2013: Japan, hosted by Alan from travelling foodies.