Yakisoba

It is virtually impossible to attend a summer festival in Japan and not come across a yakisoba stand. Yakisoba is a fried noodle dish made by barbecuing or stir-frying a combination of noodles, sliced cabbage, pork, carrot and other vegetables, and a barbecue style yakisoba sauce. During the summer festivals large piles of these ingredients are thrown onto an outdoor hotplate and barbecued, but yakisoba can also easily be made at home using a large frying pan or wok. ‘Yakisoba’ means ‘cooked soba’, but unlike other soba noodles, the noodles used in yakisoba do not contain any buckwheat.