Yakisoba
Yakisoba first originated from China and is similar to the Chinese dish called “chow mein”, but it has been changed to be more like ramen. Sometimes people think yakisoba is like soba because the word soda is in “yakisoba”, but they are not the same. Soda is made from buck wheat and is less flavorful but yakisoba is kind of like ramen noodles that are made with wheat flour. Yakisoba or sōsu yakisoba as some say, it’s flavored with yakisoba sauce, the sauce is a sweetened and thickened modification of the Worcestershire sauce (A fermented liquid that people use to add flavor to meat and fish, it’s made from fruits and vegetables like apples and tomatoes, aged with sugar, salt, spices, starch and caramel). Another sauce some people use to flavor their yakisoba is tonkatsu, it’s made from fruit, vegetables, and caramel so it’s pretty sweet.
Yakisoba means fried noodles; Yaki translated from Japanese to English means fried and soda indicate noodles, and is usually made by stir-frying ramen like noodles with pork or tofu and vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, and onions then the yakisoba sauce is put in, pepper and salt is added to give additional taste. The yakisoba can be served as a main dish or it can be served as a side dish. It’s usually eaten with multiple side dishes, like fish flakes, Japanese mayonnaise, seaweed powder, and shredded pickled ginger.
There are many different types of yakisoba, not only is there pork yakisoba but there is also chicken, vegetable or vegetarian, beef, and seafood. There is also yakisoba-pan; this is made when you put a pile of yakisoba into a bun kind of like the way a hot dog is made. Just like how you put mustard and ketchup on a hot dog you put mayonnaise and shreds of pickled ginger on a yakisoba-pan. In the Kitakyushu and the Fukuoka Prefecture they took the Chinese style soba that yakisoba is made from and replaced it with white udon and named it yakiudon. Kata-yakisoba, is made when the noodles are...