Truth be told, I am not a very gifted cook. The food I fabricate myself is mostly edible, but not something that really needs to be served to the general public. This is something it shares with German and Dutch food, by the way. Every now and then, friends have to endure it, but so far, all of them survived the experience, and some of them even returned a second time, surprisingly.
So, my home cooking is usually simple and fast. Especially now, in summer, it is too hot to stay in the kitchen for too long anyway, even though I have all my windows open and there is often a nice draught through my apartment. If I feel like eating anything at all right now, I try to have something cold like sushi, or something requiring a minimum amount of preparation.
One of the dishes I love is yakisoba, Japanese style fried noodles. It is soba noodles fried with a little bit of meat and a lot of veggies, and a special brownish sauce mainly responsible for the taste. Yakisoba are often sold at festival stalls and are very easy to make. At least, that’s what I thought when I first found a box containing all the ingredients for a one-person yakisoba fest, from precooked noodles to meat and veggies to the sauce and final toppings.
It should be simple, no: in a pan first fry the meat, then add the veggies, at last the noodles. Stir a bit, add the sauce and toppings and eat. Well, I have tried now several times, and I am still burning the noodles faster than I can stir them. At least the charcoal taste is not that strong anymore, but I still cannot manage the dish tasting as it should.
Oh well… I will simply keep trying – and erring – until I get it right. It can’t take forever, can it? And when I finally figured out the secret to really good yakisoba, I’ll post the recipe on my “washoku” page. Promised.