Making Japanese Yakisoba Stir-Fried Vegetable, Chicken, and Noodle One-Pot Meal Online Exhibit
I am a big fan of the Japanese yakisoba stir-fry one-pot meal with vegetables, pre-cooked chicken, and wheat noodles that comes as a kit at Costco in Sand City, California.
In the photo below, you can see the exact seasonings by placing your thumb and forefinger on the image and spreading them apart to enlarge the print size.
The instructions are listed on the label for tender-crisp vegetables and warm meat and noodles: After heat oil to sizzling, you cook the vegetables for 2 minutes. Then, you add the meat and cook it for 2 minutes. The noodles take 1 minute. All together, the instructions call for 5 minutes of cooking time.
I have modified those instructions, because I like tender and sizzling hot stir-fries to 5 minutes for the vegetables, 5 minutes for the chicken, and 5 minutes for the noodles. I spend 15 minutes of constant cooking, which I still consider a reasonable amount of time cooking. I also add 4 tablespoons oil instead of the 2 called for in the original recipe.
The yakisoba kit pictured below is arranged to cook the dish in three steps.
I use a wok with a cover to cook the dish. I place the cover over the dish at the end of cooking to keep the contents warm while my family assembles at the dining room table.
I use the pictured tongs to toss and turn the yakisoba ingredients. Japanese cooks use extra long chopsticks to do this, but I like the better control I have with tongs. To open the tongs, pull on the plastic end outwards. To close the tongs, push the end back into the tool.
The yakisoba kit is set up to let you lift out the contents as needed. The vegetables that into the wok with sizzling oil include broccoli, carrots, yellow bell peppers, red bell peppers, celery, and red onion. The video shows how to gently toss the vegetables with oil before adding the pre-cooked chicken. The hot oil draws out water from the vegetables along with their flavor.
The photo and video below show steam rising from the sizzling hot vegetables. (I was cooking, photographing, and filming at the same time for the embedded shots.) When you add the pre-cooked chicken to the vegetables, you will get a burst of steam as pictured below. The quick video shows the oil sizzling by the top and bottom of the tongs. The sizzling oil is flavored with vegetable juices.
The photo after the quick video shows what the vegetables and chicken should look like before adding the noodles. The noodles first go on top of the vegetables and meat. You turn the noodles so that these items are mixed into the noodles. (See video.)
The final product is mostly vegetable and meat with the noodles soaking up the vegetable and chicken flavored oil. At this point, you can stir in the soy seasoning mix, if you would like. My family uses 1 packet for the three of us, which we stir in at the table.
The yakisoba is a one-pot meal that disappears with minimal clean-up.
The three of us ate two portions each. If you add in the olive oil and water we drank, the cost of the meal was about $7 each. That is a pretty terrific price for a Sunday lunch this is also multicultural.
If you want to try Japanese food without a large financial investment, the yakisoba one-pot meal kit at Costco in Sand City, California might be a good option for you.
For history about Yakisoba, fortunenoodle.com provides an extensive discussion on the topic at the link below:
Yakisoba History by fortune noodle.com
Text, photos, and film in this yakisoba making online exhibit by Ruth Paget, author Eating with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
