Crunchy Yakisoba/かた焼きそば

With Seafood

Dishes like this make me homesick…quite resemble to Nagasaki’s sara (pronunce sa-ra)-udon (皿うどん), seafood plus thick sauce over crunchy noodles. Nagasaki Japan’s food scene was influenced by Dutch, Portuguese and Chinese because import business thrived there in the mid 1500s.

Nagasaki’s local cuisine, champon(ちゃんぽん)…don’t call it champion though sometime I feel like champon is champion…I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar!…(oops, some words trigger me to burst out singing and dancing)…anyway, other popular noodle dish sara-udon is not really udon. One source says that a noodle shop owner had trouble home delivering champon because of spilling of soup (mind you, this is pre-Tupperware era), and Nagasaki is famous for having hundreds of slopes everywhere… so that the jelly like, sauce was invented…this is more like urban legend to me but…. I see it all, I see it now…

This revised recipe is from Miki Fujiwara, a mega blogger whose blog ‘Fujiwara family’s everyday home cooking’ has a neighborhood of 120.000 people (mind boggling, right?) who access her blog every day.

Ingredients and Instructions for Crunchy Yakisoba - 4 servings (Print Recipe Here)

For sauce

• 4 cups of water
• 1/2 teaspoon grated ginger root  Note: I used fresh but you could use tubed grated ginger.
• 5 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 2 Tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Chinese chicken soup base (granule)
• 4 Tablespoons potato starch (片栗粉)

Mix sauce ingredients except potato starch in a 4 cup glass measuring cup for easy pouring or in a medium bowl. Whisk to combine well. Put potato starch in a small bowl and add about 1/4 cup of just mixed sauce and dissolve starch with fork or chopstick. Put the whole thing back in the sauce mixture and stir well. Set aside.

• 8-10 cut dried shiitake, if the shiitake comes in whole then you need only 3 (cut in 4-6)
• 4-5 dried kikurage (black fungus/黒木耳) optional, tear in small pieces…skip it if you don’t like this stuff.
• 10 Tablespoons vegetable oil divided.
• 450g (roughly) fresh yakisoba noodle, divided in three bundles 
• 1 carrot peeled and cut in 2 inch lengths about 1/8 inch thick
• 1/4 of small cabbage roughly chopped
• 1/2 of onion thinly sliced
• Seafood of your choice or approximately 2 cups of frozen seafood mix, available at Korean market for reasonable price, defrosted if frozen.  I used shrimp, octopus, baby scallop
• 4 young corn from can, drain and rinsed, cut in half…I don’t care for it but I included it for the sake of my blog.
• 12 hard boiled quail eggs from can, drained and rinsed…next time I will hard boil them myself.
• White pepper, salt
• 1-2 teaspoons sesame oil 

1. Soak dried shitake and kikurage (if using) in a prepared sauce. Set aside.
2. Heat 3 Tablespoons  of oil in a large non-stick frying pan at medium heat. Loosen –up the first bundle of yakisoba noodles and spread onto the pan. When the bottom turns light brown, flip over and cook the other side until brown. Using tongs, lift and turn the noodle several times until the noodles get crunchy and golden brown. Place onto a plate with paper towel to absorb oil. Do the same for other two bundles. Set aside.
3. Quickly clean the same pan with a paper towel. Add the last Tablespoon of oil and heat at medium heat. Sauté the onion and carrot until soft. Add cabbage, continue to sauté until cabbage is limp, then add seafood.
4. Mix one more time (make sure that sauce is not separated) the prepared sauce before adding to the pan (step# 3). Cook until it thickens.
5. Add young corn and quail eggs, pepper and salt to taste. cook for 1-2 minutes stirring often. Pour sesame oil around the edge and stir to combine.
6. Place the yakisoba noodle on a large platter and pour the sauce over the noodles. Serve immediately to enjoy the crunchiness of the noodles.

I bought a large can of quail eggs, then put the leftovers in the dill pickle jar…this would be nice snack.

Guess what I found? My husband brought a yellow rose still alive in all the rain we had in our tiny rose garden. He made a olive bread, cleaned the gutters, carved the pumpkin and got ready for Trick-or-Treaters, it was busy day…thanks honey!

Last Saturday was very gloomy due to heavy rain. There was no good light to take the Today’s Tapas (#todaystapas) picture. This is just a ham and cheese sandwich but Halloween style. I made the face with pickled grapes and avocado.

I made this Mango and Avocado salad with Pomegranate and Dukkah from Angie’s Recipe. Guilt free and refreshing!

Can you believe it’s November already?  Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh…don’t you love this song by Katy Perry?

Veganesque

My new fave – Jazz apple

I just made up the word veganesque. We are sort of trying to have a vegan night. I can be vegan, just not everyday. I am not at all against all those vaganists (another made up word?) out there. My love of meats, fish, eggs, cheese, and butter would hinder my ability to be vegan. My daughter has a friend who is vegan. Tall and slender with gentle soul; he was very impressionable when we first met. Now, whenever I hear the word ’vegan’ I always associate his face to that. I asked all kinds of dumb questions like ‘What? you can’t have honey!?” or ‘ How about skim milk?’ (like skim milk is not milk duh). I hope he forgave me already for being ignorant and being so rude. Anyway, I am fascinated by their disciplined, meticulous and committed act of which I have none. Can a lazy person be a vegan? Can I still be happy giving up all the foods I love? Most of all, what can I possibly make with a restricted list of ingredients? I may just have an apple and call it a vegan experience.

I look through cooking magazines and find this recipe. I already had quinoa in my pantry –a good size bag of quinoa from Costco and a red color one from Whole Foods. Quinoa is an interesting grain. Tiny seeds come in red or white (may have other color but I don’t know). I think red has a slightly more pronounced flavor. I usually like to cook it with rice. The hint of wild wheat like aroma that comes out of the rice cooker is just great. Though this dish lack color, it is homey and surprisingly satisfying.

Quinoa Risotto with mushrooms and Thyme
4 servings

• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed and soak in water for 3 to 4 minutes.
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup minced or chopped onion
• 1 garlic clove, pressed
• 8 ounce sliced white mushroom
• 6 ounce sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms stemmed, sliced
• 3 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme divided
• 1 cup white wine
• Parmesan cheese - Omit if you are true vegan

1. Boil 2 cups salted water in medium sauce pan. Add quinoa, cover and simmer at medium-low heat until tender; about 13 minutes.
2. Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until onion begins to brown about 5 minutes.
3. Add garlic to the skillet and stir about 30 seconds.
4. Add mushrooms and thyme and sauté until tender.
5. Add wine and stir until wine is reduced and liquid is syrupy; about 2 minutes.
6. Mix cooked quinoa into mushroom mixture and season with salt and pepper.
   

Relatively new product this Tofu Puree is made here in Portland Oregon under the parent company Morinaga which is famous for dairy products like ice cream in Japan. Right now it is sold only in Uwajimaya (the Japanese market). Or so I was told by friend who gave it to me along with recipes. It is a cross between soy milk and tofu. I made a smoothie with frozen berry and a banana. These strawberries are from our garden last year. We planted in a container then it just put new shoots around it, now strawberries are everywhere. The blueberries are from a friends garden. They have an acre of blueberries in their property and they allow everyone to pick. They are generous people and that’s a beautiful thing. I have mix emotions on this smoothie. I didn’t hate it but I don’t care for a second glass either. I wished it was cream instead of tofu puree. Anyway, we had this for dessert and that completed our great pretender.

Berry and Banana Smoothie

• 2 cups soy silken puree
• 7 oz. frozen strawberries
• 1.4 oz. frozen blue berries
• 1 banana*
• Sugar for vegan or Honey for veganesque to taste

1. Pour Tofu Puree into blender at medium speed for 30 seconds.
2. Add frozen berries and blend 1 minutes.
3. Add banana and blend 1 minutes.
4. Add sugar or honey to taste.

*OK, I did not like banana in this smoothie.

In conclusion, I can make wonderful dishes without whole lists of no-nos. I was still happy. I am certain there are many great recipes out there and also with substitution, I will be just fine. I have new respect for people who choose to eat this way. Even though I can’t be all the way vegan, I believe we could still be friends and respect our choices. I will continue explore new vegan recipes and I hope to share with you someday.