I’m a big fan of Asian food and especially noodles. For long, long years, I’ve been ordering all sorts of noodles in different places all across the city, looking for the best or just for something different. I wasn’t really thinking about cooking it by myself until one day my friend gifted me a fine new Wok pan, which is usually used for making Asian food, but not only. This time I realized that I couldn’t put it off forever, as I really need to get my long-awaited noodle independence!
Of course, it was pretty hard to master all the subtleties of soba cooking, but with a little help from my friends and some Youtube tutorials, I finally managed to develop my own Wok cooking style. The thing is – it turned out most of the Wok masters have different approaches to noodle dishes, so I just picked some of the finest pieces of advice and techniques that I could relate to and developed my way of cooking soba. But before I begin, I wanted to tell a little bit more about soba noodles and the history of this dish.
A little bit about soba…
Soba is a traditional Japanese noodle made of buckwheat, because of which it usually has a recognizable light-brown or even dark-brown color. It is one of the 2 most common Japanese noodles together with Udon, which is pretty much the same, only made from wheat flour. The tradition of cooking dishes from soba originated in Japan approximately in the early 17th century.
Soon, it had become one of the most popular noodle sorts in the country. The great advantage of soba is that it is very nutritious and contains more essential amino acids that can’t be found in rice or wheat flour. Soba can be used for various dishes, including traditional Japanese soups, ramen, cold or hot dishes, soba dishes with vegetables, meat, seafood, eggs, etc.
Picking the right wok for the job…
In order to cook your soba right, you will need a special wok pan that is essential to many Asian cooking cultures. In most cases, it is a large and relatively deep pan with thin (not always) walls and round bottom. Most cooks use gas burners to get their woks nice and hot in several minutes and make sure that all the pan’s surface is uniformly hot. Before cooking, you need to grease your wok with some plant oil. In most cases, people use sunflower oil, but you can pick the one you like the most. The oil has to be distributed evenly on the wok surface before you will start to heat it up. You can use cooking forceps and a piece of cotton wool soaked in oil to grease the pan.
Ingredients
As I’ve said before, there are millions of different soba recipes, and I can not call the one I will present orthodox or accurate. However, in my opinion, it is pretty classic, and it will work for most people. However, I encourage you to experiment with ingredients if you feel like doing so. Just remember to stay in line with Asian cuisine, and I believe that you will succeed.
So, if you want to cook soba with chicken for two persons you will need:
- 1 soba stack (soba is normally sold in stacks, each one is designed for approximately two portions of noodle)
- 1 bulb onion
- 1 zucchini
- ¼ of the garlic bulb
- 1 bell pepper
- 1 frozen chili pepper
- 1 carrot
- Ginger
- App. 0,7 lbs of chicken meat (preferably breast)
- Sunflower oil
- Soy Sauce
- Worcestershire sauce
- Turmeric powder
- Salt
- Pepper
- Water
Cooking
Stage 1
Get your wok nice and hot. Chop some ginger into small pieces and put it on your wok for 10 seconds. After this, add marinated chicken chopped into small slices. Cook for about three minutes, and don’t forget to shuffle while cooking to make sure that everything is cooked well. Then remove chicken from the pan.
Stage 2
Add bulb onion chopped in small slices and prepare it for 40-60 seconds. After it, add pepper cut into thin slices, and zucchini cut into small cubes. Cook it for approximately 5-7 minutes, and don’t forget to stir.
While the veggies are preparing on the pan, put a soba stack into the boiling water, and cook it for about 2-3 minutes. Do not overcook soba. Ensure that it is cooked al dente because we still have to add it to the general mix. When soba is ready, remove the water and let it dry for 1 minute.
Stage 3
Prepare a sauce for the dish. Mix soy sauce with Worcester sauce and add one spoon of sugar. Then add chicken and soba to the veggies on the Wok and add the sauce. Add chopped garlic and a small amount of turmeric oil. Then add thin slices of carrot. Stir it all with cooking forceps and cook for about 5-7 minutes more.
Bon appetit!
P.S. If you have any additional questions or you want to share your ideas about my or your soba recipes, feel free to use the comments section! I’m always waiting for your feedback!
