An homage to Tanpopo
Time: 45 minutes
Feeds: 2 people
Ingredients:
For the sauce:
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- A dash of dark soy sauce
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 tbsp mirin
- 2 tsp sugar
- 3 tsp Worcestershire sauce
The rest:
- 3 large chicken thighs
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 2 tbsp avocado oil
- 2 cups cabbage, finely shredded
- 1/4 cup thinly sliced white onion
- 8-9 oz bean sprouts
- 14 1/2 oz Yakisoba noodles (2 packets of Fortune brand stir fry noodles)
Directions:
Mise en place: This dinner requires a lot of prep work to ensure that everything runs smoothly when it’s time to start cooking. We cooked this on our flat top and it worked out really well but of course you could cook this in a saute pan or wok.
Start with prepping the sauce – combine the soy sauce, dark soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and Worcestershire sauce and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Set aside for cooking.
Prep the vegetables by shredding the cabbage and slicing the onions. Portion out the amount of bean sprouts that you’ll need for this recipe. Set aside for cooking.
Thinly slice the chicken thighs and place into a separate bowl. Season with white pepper, garlic powder, and salt. Add the avocado oil and toss to coat the chicken. Set aside for cooking.
Rinse the noodles to break them up after being in the packaging. Set aside for cooking.
For assembly: Heat the flat top on medium heat. Once heated, add the chicken and spread into a single layer so the chicken can cook evenly and brown well. Make sure the chicken is cooked through and nicely seared and then set aside. I like to make a cool area of my flat top so that I can keep already cooked ingredients over there and not have to worry about moving it on and off the cooking surface.
Next cook the cabbage and onions together until softening and getting some color. You don’t have to worry about too much color accumulation since everything will be stir fried at the end of the cook time.
Clear the surface of the flat top to make room for the Yakisoba noodles and bean sprouts. Again, you don’t need to remove your cooked items but you’ll need plenty of space for the noodles. Add the noodles and bean sprouts to the flat top, keeping them in a pile of sorts. Then add about a cup of water and cover with a large metal bowl to let them steam. Please remember that this bowl is going to get VERY hot and you’ll need to be really careful when removing it. The noodles and bean sprouts will only need 1-2 minutes to steam. You’ll notice the noodles getting a little plump.
Once the steaming process is complete, combine the noodles with the cooked chicken as well as the cooked onion and cabbage mixture. Pour over the sauce and toss everything together really well. At this point, you’ll want to cook the sauce down a bit and let some of the noodles get a nice sear. You’ll need to keep an eye on things as to not burn anything but the crispy bits are key to this Yakisoba. Once the sauce has cooked down and everything is nicely coated and mixed thoroughly, you can start plating the Yakisoba. The goal of the finished Yakisoba is a fairly dry noodle which sounds strange but is perfect for this iteration of Yakisoba.
Notes: Tanpopo was a restaurant in the Crossroads Mall food court that we grew up with. Stew in particular was always a huge fan and we were both so sad when the sisters who ran it decided to retire. I think we’ve finally cracked the code to get something as close to the original as possible!
You could definitely switch out the protein in this recipe but we would always get it with chicken when ordering it from Tanpopo.