Scran – Recipe for Yakiudon

Ingredients

Udon noodles – preferably the anaemic rubbery looking snakes in plastic pouches
Protein of choice
A small onion
A handful's worth of cabbage – shredded
Mushrooms – sliced
A few spring onions – top and tailed and chopped into thirds
2tbsp oyster sauce
1tbsp brown sugar
1tbsp dark soy
1tbsp mirin
Enough garlic cloves
Pinch of salt
Pinch of pepper
Optional toppings: sesame seeds, pickled ginger, fried egg

Steps

This is the kind of meal that is made very quickly and the best way to manage it is prep all of your ingredients first and cook them in batches. See tips for some tips. Obvs.

Preparation:

Slice, chop, shred, your vegetables and put on a plate.
Slice your protein into bite size chopstickable slices. Don't cube it like a pervert.
Cook your udon noodles as per the packet. Do not rawdog them. Usually you can boil some water and soak them for about 3-5 mins. This is important. See tips for why.
Once cooked or soaked or whatever, immediately rinse them in cold water until they're cold to the touch. Again, see tips for why.
Combine your sauce ingredients (the tbsp'd items) in a little bowl.
Prep your toppings if you want some. Don't overdo it. People always overdo these things.

Cooking:

Heat a wok up until the fire brigade come round. Not literally. You know what I mean.
Add some oil and heat that until smoking.
Stir fry your protein, if using, until it is mostly cooked. Or fully cooked if you're inept at timing.
Remove into a bowl or plate or the palms of your hands. Whatever. Just get it out of the wok.
Add a bit more oil if needed then do the same with your veg.
Add a bit more oil if needed then chuck in your noodles. See tips for a sneaky tip to be seen.
Once your noodles are mostly cooked add protein and warm through, then add veg and warm through.
Finally add your sauce and cook until it thickens and caramelises a little bit.
Serve up and add toppings.

Tips

Udon noodles are easy to cook but if you rawdog them they end up weirdly chalky and not pleasant. This is one of those "follow the instructions" sort of things. Disgusting I know. I've never used the dried noodles.
One of the things people mean, when they say they can't cook, is that they are bad at prep. Your life will be easier if you prep everything before you start cooking. It will be even easier if you do it in an order that requires minimal washing. (Why slice disease ridden chicken before vegetables?)
On the subject of prep, treat yourself to some lil bowls that can act a sauce mixing bowls. Or even better, you know those little pots you get fluorescent sweet and sour sauce in when your order your shameful pissed Chinese good? Keep them.
You need to cool your noodles after they are boiled if you're going to stir fry them. This will make the world of difference. If you're making some soupy lil number then it doesn't matter.
Get a proper wok. See below.

I'm going to let you in on a secret. Proper woks aren't expensive non-stick heavy things from John Lewis. They're thin steel bendy numbers from the back corner of a Chinese supermarket.

And you know what? They come with some "before you use effort". Put the effort in. You deserve tasty stir fried items. Everyone does. So buy that £5 wok. Season it. Google how to season it. Then season it.

If you don't have a gas hob then I pity you, but try anyway. If you do have a gas hob, be friends with the extreme heat. Blast the knob as high as it can go and enjoy the most-likely-carcinogenic steely smoke it produces. Learn to love the ringing of your smoke alarm and the angry cries of your neighbours. It will all be worth it in the end.