Wagamama's Yaki Soba

So there's a story that goes to this recipe. I spent my sophomore year of college overseas in London. A few nights a week our house would go to dinner together and one of our favorite restaurants was Wagamama. It's an "Asian fusion" place, which basically means they serve all sorts of Asian foods. Anyway, Wagamama is super awesome and they have locations in Europe and some in the US now, I believe. They recently published a cookbook with their most popular recipes and sauces and I got it for Christmas (thank you, Doug!)

This cookbook is not like any other cookbook I own. First off, there are ingredients and words in it that I can't even pronounce, much less ever heard of. There is a handy dandy glossary that explains what most of the ingredients are and some more conventional substitutions. With all that in mind, I took the leap and attempted to make my favorite dish, yaki soba. It was delicious! Tyler scarfed it down, Doug literally licked his plate and the leftovers were gone in a day.

• 4 oz soba noodles
• 2 Tbsp yaki soba sauce (recipe below)
• 1 small onion, peeled and cut into half-moon slices
• 4 scallions, trimmed and cut into 1 inch lengths
• large handful of bean sprouts
• 15 small cooked, peeled shrimp
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into strips
• 1/2 red pepper, trimmed, seeded and cubed
• 1/2 green pepper, trimmed, seeded and cubed
• 2 eggs, beaten

Cook the noodles in a large pot of boiling water for 2-3 minutes until just tender. Drain and refresh under cold running water. Put the yaki soba sauce, onion, scallions, bean sprouts and shrimp in a large bowl and mix in the noodles.

Heat wok over medium heat for 1-2 minutes or until completely hot and almost smoking and add the vegetable oil. Add the chicken and red and green peppers and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add the noodles and vegetables to the wok and stir-fry quickly for 3 minutes until warmed through. Add the eggs and continue to stir-fry for another minute or until the eggs are just cooked. Serve with the pickled ginger, shallots and sesame seeds.

For serving

• 2 Tbsp pickled ginger
• 1 Tbsp dried shallots
• 1/2 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Sauce (makes about 1/2 cup)

• 1/2 cup light soy sauce
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce

Put all ingredients in a small pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat immediately and simmer for 10 minutes. Once cool, it will keep in the fridge for a few weeks.

NOTES: A note at the bottom of the recipe says that you can substitute ramen noodles for soba noodles so I just used noodles, but no seasoning, from a few packets of Top Ramen. Also, I don't own a wok so we just used a really large, high-sided frying pan. It worked just fine, you just have to keep everything in the pan moving at all times. I'm also not sure why it says to cut the chicken into strips, but next time I would just cut the chicken into bite sized bits.

Each recipe makes about 2 servings so we doubled the recipe and it was plenty to feed 4 adults and a kid.

Serves: 2
Prep Time: 25 min
Total Time: 25 min

Recipe from Wagamama Cookbook