Modern yaki

Third dish of the hot plate fiesta at Emi’s. You’ve seen :
okonomiyaki and her yakisoba. Now we are mixing both.
That’s not something she usually does, but modan-yaki (modern yaki) is a regular offer in Osaka’s okonomiyaki places.

If you have a huge hot plate, you can make it all on it. Otherwise, you can stir-fry the noodles in a frying pan with pork breast and Worcester sauce.

Then on the plate, grill the noodles and more thin slices of pork belly.

The batter-cabbage mix is the same as for okonomiyaki (more here).

Place pork on the noodles.

Cover with batter. Add tenkasu (tempura crumbs), pickled ginger and the rest of pork. Flip.

On the other side, add an egg.

Flip again.

Garnish with sauce, mayonnaise, fish flakes and aonori seaweeds.

Yakisoba with eringii and abura-age

Today, yakisoba, the Japanese version of Chinese fried noodles. Well, that’s my version of it… well, one of them. See others at the end of this post.

Yakisoba is fast-food normally. It’s often sold cheaply on street stalls, at festivals and the teppanyaki (hot plate) shops propose it too. The basic version is made mostly with :

-chuka soba (fresh Chinese noodles that are sold fresh and cooked, they look like thick spaghetti and if you have none, cooked thick spaghetti can be used)
-oil

That’s why we said it’s fried noodles, no mystery. And low amounts of :

-cabbage (cut in big squares)
-additional veggies (cut in thin slices), few and cheap ones (bean sprouts, onion, carrot, some kind of leeks…)
-a little raw meat (thin slices of pork), or cheap seafood, or ham…
-sauce (specific sauce or thickened Worcester sauce or a mix of Worcester + ketchup…), plus additional ketchup or mayo if you want
-pickled ginger, toppings…

My version uses what I have in my fridge, and it’s usually healthier.

So, I had abura age (fried tofu) as meat.

A few Eringi mushrooms as meat too.

I had a leftover of green papaya.

I first toasted the abura-age (fried tofu pockets), set aside. Then with a little garlic and ginger : onion, eringi mushrooms, green papaya, cabbage and shishito green peppers. To the veggies, I’ve added fresh Chinese noodles (chuka soba), sauce (Bulldog).

I’ve added the abura-age to the rest. I have about half of veggies, less than one third of noodles. That’s how I like it.

On top, a little more sauce, shichimi togarashi (7 spice mix) and cut green negi leeks.

Mitsuba mushroom kimchi ramen

A quick lunch, using as usual season produce. It’s just a stir-fry of chuka soba (Chinese noodles).

With konnyaku (cut in cubes), chicken liver, stalks and leaves of mitsuba, kimchi, white mushrooms…

That makes an interesting mi of flavors, textures, rawness, cooked feeling, spiciness.

Kogomi (fiddleheads) and heart lettuce yakisoba

Têtes de violon.

Kogomi. Fiddleheads.

Another green Spring lunch.

That’s the season for this wood veggie. They are sprouts of ferns. Maybe they are good for health, maybe they are toxic. Well once a year, that shouldn’t kill me too fast.