Yaki-Soba: Japanese Stir-Fried Noodles

Yaki-soba is one of those essentially simple, endlessly flexible dishes, perfect for times when the cupboard is relatively bare and you have some odds and ends to use up. Today I made it as an unusual destination for Thanksgiving leftovers, using chunks of turkey. It would be great for those days when you’re sick of working through the carcass of that big Thanksgiving bird. I mentioned halfway through lunch that I liked the turkey in the dish, and Arne looked up with surprise from his noodle bowl and exclaimed, “This is turkey?”

So use this recipe to hide your leftovers. Or just make it because it’s quick and delicious.

Yaki-soba is a Japanese stir-fried noodle dish, similar to its Chinese cousin lo mein but with different flavors in the sauce. To me, the element that makes yaki-soba taste distinctively Japanese is the Worcestershire sauce, a flavoring used with abandon in the sauces for such dishes as tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet) and okonomiyaki (sometimes called “Japanese pizza” for its popularity as a casual meal or snack).

Ready-to-use yaki-soba noodles are available in some grocery stores (I buy them at Smith’s, where they are kept in the produce section by the tofu) and international food stores. They’re kind of pricey, but mighty convenient. Or use any long, thin wheat or egg noodle – spaghetti, ramen, or lo mein noodles will all work. Prepare according to package label.

To my mind, onions and cabbage are necessities in yaki-soba; other than that, use whatever veggies you have on hand. I used rutabaga today, since I had a small one languishing in the crisper. I really love the color and sweetness of carrots here. Broccoli, red bell peppers, any kind of pea… toss in what sounds good to you. Same with meat: use shrimp, chicken, pork, firm or baked tofu, or no protein element at all. This is a bare-bones version; add a half-tablespoon ginger and/or garlic, some Sriracha or other chile sauce to taste, maybe a little sake or mirin, if you’d like to snaz it up.

Yaki-Soba

adapted from Mark Bittman’s recipe; serves 2

1 tablespoon peanut or vegetable oil

1/4 medium cabbage, sliced

1/2 small onion, sliced

Other vegetables as desired, sliced in matchsticks

Black pepper

10 oz fresh yaki-soba or about 2 cups cooked long noodles

1/2 cup cooked turkey or other protein, chopped or shredded

3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon ketchup

Pinch sugar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

Heat the peanut oil in a large skillet; add the onion, cabbage, and any hard vegetables like carrots, and stir-fry until limp (5 minutes). Pepper generously. Add noodles, turkey, and soft veggies like snow peas; stir in. (If the yaki-soba seems a little stiff, add two tablespoons of water and cover with a lid for a couple minutes to soften.)

Stir in Worcestershire and soy, ketchup, and sugar; toss to coat noodles evenly and get everything nice and hot. Taste and add more sauce ingredients to your liking – I like a LOT of Worcestershire in this. Turn off heat, stir in sesame oil, portion into two bowls, and serve.

Follow Unfussy Epicure on Facebook!