Noodles ── Yakisoba
Miso Yakisoba
Miso Yakisoba — garlic-forward yakisoba often served at yakiniku restaurants
A style of yakisoba seasoned with a miso-based sauce, often heavy on garlic and commonly served at yakiniku restaurants. Its fermented depth sets it apart from sauce, and several regional yakisoba dishes build on this same base.
Lineage
What it's made of
Miso's fermented aroma and a strong hit of garlic come first, giving the dish more the feel of a meat course than sauce yakisoba does. Chinese-style noodles are typically paired with pork and cabbage, the miso sauce's depth and sweetness clinging tightly to the toppings.
How it's made
A miso-based sauce, sweetened with sugar and garlic and sometimes given a kick of chili, is mixed ahead of time, then worked into the noodles and toppings as they fry together. At yakiniku restaurants it's often served as a closing dish, cooked right on the grill or griddle.
Why it took this shape
One account holds that in places, and at yakiniku restaurants, where cooking meat in a miso-based sauce was already the custom, that same sauce was simply carried over to noodles. Rather than leaning on sauce as the default seasoning, a region's or shop's own miso culture was turned directly into a way of dressing noodles.
Before you go
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Dishes in the same style
- Abura ZomenPork and somen are fried together with a splash of broth, the oil and stock emulsifying into a silky coat on the noodles. Just how somen took root in wheat-free Amami isn't clear, but the dish is a fixture whenever people gather, not least for the August Dance festival.
- Aizu Curry YakisobaA dish from Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima: sauce yakisoba topped with curry roux. It's said to trace to a diner called Tommy Food, which began ladling curry over its yakisoba, catching on especially among young diners for its low price and filling size.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Related lineage
- Shio YakisobaA style of yakisoba seasoned with salt or a salt-based sauce rather than the usual Worcestershire-style sauce. Offered at shops around the country as an alternative to sauce yakisoba, sometimes finished tart with lemon or vinegar, or made richer with butter.
- Shoyu YakisobaA style of yakisoba seasoned with soy sauce, a soy-based sauce, or Chinese soy sauce, commonly found on Chinese-restaurant menus. Some shops add oyster sauce for a Shanghai-style finish — a distinct strand from sauce yakisoba in both aroma and color.
Root style
- Hiruzen YakisobaA yakisoba from the Hiruzen highlands of Okayama fried not in Worcestershire-style sauce but in a sweet-savory house miso sauce, tossed with chicken and cabbage. Said to have spread out from a single diner's recipe.
- HorusobaA dish eaten for more than fifty years in eastern Tottori: beef offal and vegetables stir-fried in a miso-based sauce, with Chinese-style noodles added in. Born at yakiniku and offal restaurants, it's still widely served around Tottori city today.