Yakiudon with Chicken

Many years ago, like, half a decade or so, I studied abroad in Japan. It was, in a word, AWESOME. Good food too. One of my favorite dishes remains yakisoba, a common street cart and festival food that I saw in Tokyo.

Yakisoba, of course, is made with chinese egg noodles. I didn't have any of that on hand, but I did have a bunch of udon. Unorthodox it may be, (I never saw pan fried udon in Japan, but this version, with thin udon, will be closer than if I used actual soba noodles), but I wanted the flavor of yakisoba, and without leaving the house! So, yakiudon it was.

No tonkatsu, either. Tonkatsu is the traditional sauce used to make yakisoba, and is a thick, rich, dark caramel-colored sauce, like sweet Worcestershire. Using Worcestershire sauce mixed with sugar would have been one way to go about this, but that would have been too easy. So, this is what I did, working with the sauce until it 'smelled right'. (Granted, this is a five year old memory, so who knows what it really smelled like. But I have faith in myself: I have a great nose for food.)

To get that thickened, caramel look, I used tamari, a type of sweeter, thicker Japanese soy sauce. Yakisoba has a bit of a spicy bite to it. I used a little bit of my always-on-hand Thai chile paste, but that didn't give the right kick. At the very end I added two big dashes of ground white pepper. Perfect. I also added mirin and hondashi, two essential Japanese cooking ingredients. Mirin give Japanese dishes that shiney appearance. It's a type of cooking sake, for the trivia nerds out there.

Turned out delicious, if not exactly authentic. You can't qualify it as anything but 'Japanese', however. Not with hondashi in it! :)

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Yaki-udon

October-7-2012

Not authentic, but still pretty dang tasty!

Ingredients

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into bite size pieces
• 1 TBS canola oil
• 1/2 TBS sesame oil
• 2 TBS chile paste
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup, divided tamari
• 1/8 cup Mirin
• 1 tsp hondashi
• 1/4 tsp dried ginger
• 1/2 tsp white pepper (or two pinches)
• 1/2 yellow onion, roughly chopped
• 1/2 head cabbage, roughly chopped
• 2 carrots, coarsly chopped
• 8 oz, cooked al dente udon noodles

Instructions

1. In a large skillet (cast iron is best, I don't own one), heat oil, then add chile paste. Cook for 30 seconds, then add garlic, cooking for another 30 seconds. Add chicken breast pieces, pan frying for a few minutes until no longer pink. Add 1/2 of the tamari, all of the mirin and hondashi. Cook down for 5 minutes. 2. In a separate pot, boil 6 oz water, add udon. Cook for 8 minutes, until al dente. 3. Set aside chicken mixture. Add carrots and onions to pan, frying for 2 min, then add cabbage. Continue cooking until cabbage just begins to wilt. Stir in remaining tamari, ginger, and white pepper. Add cooked udon noodles. Serve while hot.

Details

Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 15 mins Total time: Yield: 3 servings