Korean Yakisoba with French Horn Mushroom, Tofu and 5:10 Egg – Recipe
Korean Yakisoba with French Horn Mushroom, Tofu and 5:10 Egg
I asked around on the social medias to see if there was an official name for Japanese yakisoba noodles cooked with Korean flavors, and no-one came up with anything, but I have a hard time believing that some version of this dish doesn’t exist. So someone please let me know the right term.
Meanwhile, make this and vary the vegetables according to what you have on hand. Mine was inspired by a trip to Uwajimaya, so you can see I had a lot of great Asian ingredients available. You could simplify this whole thing, just making the noodles tossed with the sauce and whatever vegetables you want and jarred kimchi and it would be easily be a 30 minute meal.
If you have time though, I highly recommend the quick radish kimchi. In Korea, kimchi can be made with anything from cabbage to pears, and it can be pickled for a wide range of times to produce different tastes. The recipe below makes a great template to work with a variety of vegetables and adds that wonderful hit of acidity and crunch to any dish.
There are a lot of ways to make nice soft-boiled eggs. I use David Chang’s very simple 5:10 approach below, but if you have a different way you prefer, feel free to substitute it.
As far as the other ingredients go: if I haven’t convinced you to buy gochujang yet, I’m trying again. It is a mainstay of Korean cuisine, a hot paste made from spicy peppers, rice and fermented soybeans (NB: and often some wheat products, not gluten free). It keeps a long time in the fridge and I can pretty well guarantee you’ll be addicted after one try.
Hatcho miso is interesting stuff – almost black, chunky and fudgy, it has a somewhat smoky taste. If you can’t find it, just use a red miso instead.
Garlic chives (aka nira) can be found at good Asian grocers and sometimes at farmer’s markets. If you can’t find them, use say 6-8 scallions instead.
The French horn mushrooms are also known as king oyster mushrooms, but every time I mention them with that name, someone writes in to say “I thought this was a vegetarian blog!” Read closer, people ;).
Korean Yakisoba with French Horn Mushroom, Tofu and 5:10 Egg
Vegetarian and kosher
Serves 4
For the quick radish kimchi
- 5 red radishes, thinly sliced (on a mandoline if available)
- 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon Korean red pepper powder, or failing that, cayenne
- Toss all ingredients and allow to rest at room temperature for about an hour. Can also be made a day ahead and refrigerated.
- 1/4 cup hatcho miso, or failing that, red miso
- 1/4 cup gochujang
- 1/2 cup mirin (preferably the real thing, not a bottle of corn syrup labeled mirin)
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Combine and whiz all ingredients in a mini food processor, adding water if needed to reach a saucy consistency. Taste and adjust seasoning.
- 4 refrigerator-temperature eggs (you may want to do extra to be on the safe side)
- Vegetable oil
- 14 ounces extra-firm tofu, patted as dry as possible and cut into bite sized cubes
- 4 large French horn (aka king oyster) mushrooms, cut lengthwise into 1/4″ thick slabs
- 12 shishito peppers (or padron peppers)
- 1 bunch asparagus, tough ends removed and cut into bite sized pieces
- 1 bunch garlic chives (nira), hard ends trimmed off and cut into bite-sized lengths
- 1 1/2 pounds fresh yakisoba noodles
- Shiso leaf
- Set up a small bowl full of ice water. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Gently lower in the eggs and cook for exactly 5 minutes and 10 seconds. Transfer to the ice bath. When cool, peel and reserve.
- Set your serving bowls to warm up.
- Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a wok or your largest skillet over high heat. Working in two batches, fry the tofu until golden brown on all sides, season with a bit of salt, then reserve on a paper-towel lined plate.
- Add a bit more oil if necessary and fry the mushrooms in a single layer on both sides until golden brown on both sides. Season with a bit of salt and reserve.
- Add a bit more oil if necessary and blister the peppers on all sides, season with salt and reserve.
- Add a bit more oil if necessary and stir-fry the asparagus until tender. Add the garlic chives and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the yakisoba noodles and stir-fry for about 1 minute or according to package directions. Add the tofu and the sauce to the pan and toss through. Taste and make any final adjustments to the seasoning. If it seems a bit dry (“tight” as chefs call it), add a little water.
- Divide the noodles (with the tofu, asparagus and garlic chives) among the serving bowls. Top each bowl with a peeled egg, a dose of the radish kimchi, 3 of the shishito peppers and their share of the mushrooms. Quickly chiffonade the shiso and scatter it on top. Cut halfway through the egg to allow the yolk to slowly run out, then serve immediately.
Got the cookbook in the mail yesterday — marvelous! Great job.
Looks great. By the way, garlic chives are even easier to grow than regular chives. You start by taking a head of garlic from the grocery, breaking it into cloves, filling a small pot with dirt, and shoving each clove into the dirt about an inch deep so that its “rough” (i.e. less pointed) end is down. Add some water; wait a while. Soon (i.e., a few weeks) you’ll have garlic chives.
Is that what those mushrooms are called – French horn? Good to know. I’ve used it a lot in my cooking when we lived in Seattle and Uwajimaya was two blocks from us. Good times… How is your tour going? Hope you have some fun too! 🙂
Not yet tried Korean yakisoba. With mushrooms in it, this is going to be delicious. =)
Hmm…I think Korean yakisoba (야끼소바) is as good a name as any. You’ll see yakisoba on the menu if you go to an izakaya in Korea, and yakisoba is a pretty common find at Korean pubs as well.
Thanks for the recipe! It’s a different take on my fallback meal–noodles with kimchi, tofu, and scallions.
I love my soba noodles in their unadorned form, where they can showcase their clean buckwheat flavor.. but your take would work wonderfully using udon (or rice) noodles as well 😀
Hey there!
I’m not actually sure the exact dish like yakisoba exists in Korea. Of course there are many different noodle dishes but this yakisoba seems like a fusion, but I must say, a great one!
My mum makes me this cold noodle for a midnight snack when I’m back home in Korea. She boils Somen, rinses them cold. Then she mixes chopped kimchi with sesame, a bit of sugar, more chilli of you would like, a bit of soysauce, spring onion, and a spoonful or two of the kimchi juice. This mixture is mixed with noodle with an ice cube or two (if it’s a very hot day) and a boiled egg on top. Voila! Midnight kimchi noodle!
I also like simple gochujang sauce with the noodle too. (gochujang, vinegar, sugar, more chilli if you can take the heat, sesame seeds..). This goes well with julienned cucumber and a boiled egg. This is called Bibim-Guksu.
Have fun on tour, and thanks for your great blog!
Oh man, the cold midnight snack noodle sounds amazing!
Excellent dish, I love Korean food, and this was excellent usually don’t like tofu but I may of changed my mind.
Your friendly gardening geek here: @ John – that’s garlic *greens* or leaves you’re talking about – yes, very easy to grow and useful in the kitchen as well as a pest repellent, but not chives.
Regular chives are “allium schoenoprasum” and garlic chives are “allium tuberosum” – both look rather grasslike, with much narrower leaves and milder flavor than, respectively, onions or garlic.
I don’t use garlic or hot peppers in cooking as my husband can’t digest either (I just grow them as pest repellent) – buckwheat noodles with mushrooms sounds really good, though; I think I’ll add some kind of greens and do this for supper.
This is one unique yakisoba. Definitely gives me the idea on how I can enjoy and make my own yakisoba.I love fried noodle dishes- whats not to love about the combination of noodles and vegies? haha
It’s amazing how much fantastic food you can find within these pages, and here’s yet another one that can’t wait to be tried 🙂 Michael, thank you!
Korean Yakisoba. That recipe is awesome! Simple, quick, easy, doesn’t make a mess, and ingredients on hand. We live way far from town. Having something like this that we can throw together with whatever we have is perfect.
Thank you.
I just found your blog an hour or two ago after Googling for some tofu recipes. Now, I not only want to try your tofu recipes but almost everything else you have offered up here! I’m copy/pasting several of them to my recipe file, and know I’ll be back soon for more. My mouth is watering right now. I will be making a glazed tofu tonight, and use your plate suggestions to add brown rice and broccoli along with the sesame seed condiment. YUM. Luckily it won’t take very long to make. I am STARVING. So, I am SO happy I found you. I forsee a LOT of good eating in my future.
Hey Carolina – I’m delighted to have you aboard, and I hope you get lots of use out of the recipes!
You’re a GENIUS, Michael!
Thank you for sharing your awesome recipes.
They make me feel like cooking more sattvic vegetarian dishes at home.
Your Asian-inspired recipes are highly creative, yet firmly rooted in various Asian culinary traditions… enough for me to want to try cooking them all!
(Sometimes I cringe when I see non-Asians suggesting “innovative” ways to use or combine Asian ingredients that don’t make any sense… or the other way around, Asians suggesting European techniques or products in the most FOB manner 😛 )