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.

Ika yaki soba – calamari buckwheat noodles

Street-stall… at home.

Soba, buckwheat noodles. Stir-fried with sosu (Worcester sauce).

Fresh calamari, stir-fried briefly.

Yaki soba re-balanced

Street stall yakisoba is often a big lump of starch and not very light. It’s different at home. And still really delicious.

A base of young Awaji onion.
With eringi mushroom and mizuna.

Trick : half the amount of pasta, double the dose of veggies…

Add raw green.

Mushroom proteins.

Coucous

It’s sunny ! Yeah ! That’s why I put primevères. Primavera is the Italian for Spring, surely because of these flowers. These are cultivated. In my home place, we’d go in the fields to pick tons of wild ones, like that :

Des coucous, je me souviens de ce goût sucré qu’avaient ces fleurs.
Il y en avait partout au printemps, dans les prés, le long des talus. Nous en faisions des balles.

Source Blog “Memoire de petite fille” (in French)

We call the coucous, as “Coucou !” means “Hi !” , like “Hi, I’m the Spring. I’m here…”.
Well, I here and not there, because it’s Springing in Osaka, but it’s mid-Winter in France. I still missed the coucous.