The delicious secret of yaki udon

Fleshy noodles with toppings as varied as they are tasty, such as bacon, mushrooms or… whatever takes your fancy, all topped with an enigmatic silky and umami sauce as desired. Stir-fried udon noodles — yaki udon in Japanese — are all about a meal that warms both the body and the heart. Here’s how to cook them at home.

A few days before the closure of their tiny restaurant on Rachel Street for a vacation in Japan, Élyse Garand and Hidenori Tsuda had forgotten the arrival of The Press Noren to prepare yaki udon, thick pan-fried wheat flour noodles (yaki means “grilled” in Japanese).

“It doesn’t matter, I’m doing some right now,” jokes Élyse Garand, grabbing a packet of noodles from the freezer.

Time to gather a handful of ingredients, plunge the udon noodles into boiling water and turn on the hot plate, the place is filled with a bewitching smell of Asian street food. And a little smoke. “We don’t often make fried noodles here, because we’re not settled enough, but we love it! adds Élyse Garand.

Noren’s specialties are takoyaki (octopus fritters) and okonomiyaki (cabbage omelettes), but sometimes udon is on the menu as a dish of the week.

In a few minutes, everything is ready. The yaki udon are bathed in butter shoyu, the appetizing soy-based emulsion that makes them so popular. Along with the meaty noodles, the large chunks of mushrooms and the still-tender egg yolk announce a rich symphony of textures, to which the crunchy pieces of asparagus and green onion will also bring a touch of freshness. The smell of bacon ends up tickling the taste buds. “The bacon brings a little smoky side that it is sometimes difficult to give without a real wok”, adds Élyse Garand.

In the mouth, all the promises are kept. And the noodles disappear with great blows of chopsticks.

An accidental dish

In Japan, like at Noren’s, udon are more often served in a broth. For fried noodles, restaurants are turning more green soba, finer. Moreover, legend has it that a shortage of soba is at the origin of yaki udon. A chef from the island of Hokkaido would have served pan-fried udon out of spite at the end of the Second World War. But the experience was good. A lot. And over time, the dish has gained followers across the Land of the Rising Sun, where each region has its favorite toppings.

Making udon noodles isn’t particularly complicated, the Japanese chef continues, but it’s a messy business. Due to lack of space, Élyse and Hidenori – who form a couple in life – therefore use frozen noodles. In Asian grocery stores, but also at Provigo or Walmart, you can also find vacuum-packed fresh ones, perfect for homemade yaki udon.

“You have to soak the noodles in boiling water just long enough to heat them up,” explains Hidenori Tsuda, who still has family in Kyoto. The longer they will become mushy…”

Dried udon are never as meaty as fresh or frozen. But they also do the trick…

In any case, you can garnish them with whatever you have on hand: proteins (meat, egg, seafood or tofu), vegetables (cabbage, green beans, mushrooms, etc.) and herbs (garlic, ginger, chilli , seaweed, kimchi, bonito, sesame…).

The secret is in the sauce

Still, the secret ingredient of yaki udon is the sauce. Butter shoyu (literally “butter and soy”), which Hidenori Tsuda loves, is disarmingly simple to prepare. Simply melt butter slowly with soy sauce and sake. The key is to mix everything well to make an emulsion. Warning: if the pan is too hot, the sauce will separate. The dish will not be inedible, far from it, but you will have to forget about its silky side.

Asian grocery stores also offer other delicious sauces made with udon, including tonkatsu sauce, which tastes like Worcestershire. Yakisoba sauce also has its supporters.

Don’t feel like cooking? A few restaurants offer yaki udon in Montreal. Among them, those with chicken from Kurobuta, boulevard Saint-Laurent, and beef from Kinka, a chain founded in Toronto which has a branch on rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, in the city center.

So why deprive yourself ?

Minute yaki udon

Yaki udon are delicious with a wide variety of toppings, so feel free to make substitutions depending on what you have on hand. Here is the recipe for the dish prepared by Élyse Garand, from the Noren, for this report.

For 4 people

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 4 portions of udon noodles (about 200 g per portion)
• 4 slices of bacon in pieces
• 8 asparagus in 5 cm sections
• 200 g oyster mushrooms, cut into (large) pieces
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup sake
• 1 C. sugar
• 1 C. minced garlic
• 100 g (about 1/2 cup) cold butter in small cubes
• 2 green onions, minced
• Kizami nori (dried seaweed) to taste

Preparation

1. Place the eggs in boiling water and cook for 6 and a half minutes. Drain, cover with cold water and let cool before peeling. To book.

2. Prepare frozen or dried udon according to package directions. Rinse with cold water. To book.

3. Heat a large frying pan and add the bacon pieces, asparagus and oyster mushrooms. Cook for about 2 minutes.

4. Add all sauce ingredients except butter, then stir.

5. Remove the pan from the heat, then add the cubes of very cold butter to the pan and stir briskly to emulsify the sauce.

6. Add udon noodles. Mix well to coat them with sauce. Divide the contents of the skillet among four bowls or plates.

7. Garnish each dish with half an egg, green onions and dried seaweed.