Yakisoba

The first date I went on was also the first time I experienced yakisoba.  The nice young lady was excited for me to take her to a food fair to get noodles.  She was mostly excited for the noodles and less excited to hang out with me, but to be fair I mostly only remember the noodles from the date as well.

Yakisoba is easy to make if you can find the noodles.  In most grocery stores they are in the produce section near wonton wrappers and Asian vegetables.  You can use whatever vegetables you want (this batch included carrots, zucchini, onions, and yellow bell pepper).  Getting the noodle to vegetable ratio correct takes a little bit of practice and varies by each individuals preferences.  I also use sesame oil and red pepper flake for additional flavor.

The first step is to loosen the package of noodles.  You can either run water over the noodles or poke holes in the package and heat them in the microwave for a minute (my preferred method because the dryer noodles seem to come out better).  You can then loosen the noodles with your hand.

Once the noodles are loosened set them aside and stir fry the vegetables in a hot skillet or wok.  Once they are almost to your desired tenderness (usually just a few minutes of cooking) add the noodles on top.  The noodles also come with a seasoning packet.  The noodles instruct you to mix the seasoning packet with water and then pour over the noodles.  My experience has been that the instructions call for way too much water.  I usually use less than half the recommended amount of water because when I use the full amount it seems like the whole dish becomes boiled or stemmed instead of stir fried.

All that is needed after that is tossing everything together and then it is ready to serve.

In searching for yakisoba instructions I stumbled across an amazing resource on YouTube.  RunnyRunny999 takes orders for traditional Japanese dishes and then shows you how to make them.  They are entertaining, informative, and I'm planning on trying a few of them down the road.