On yakiudon.

I love the chewiness of udon noodles, but getting some have always been somewhat of a pain.  Short of going to a Japanese restaurant, I have to trek all the way to Chinatown (Chinatown!) in order to get some.  Compared to the Food Emporium a block away, well...  I guess New York City has spoiled me.

Nevertheless, on a previous trip to Chinatown in Flushing to meet with a friend, I seized the opportunity to stock up on Asian food at the supermarket.  This included, amongst other things, a giant package of frozen udon noodles.  I was unaware that udon was sold in frozen packages here (they're usually refrigerated), but this was great, since I could toss a bunch in the freezer and use them months later.

A month later...

According to Wikipedia, udon noodle is traditionally served hot during the winter, usually in a broth of some sort.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the ingredients for a broth, tradition or otherwise, so I had to settle for the next best thing: yakiudon.  This consists of udon noodles stir fried with various things, including vegetables and meats, similar to the Chinese chow mein.

And true to the spirit of cheap, simple fare, I didn't bother with a recipe, instead making my yakiudon with various things that have been sitting in the fridge:

Chicken thighs
Carrots
Onions

Add some soy sauce and garlic, and we've got the makings of a stir fried noodle dish.

Stir frying things involves two basic steps:

1.  Ingredient preparation.

Cut things into bite sized pieces, and marinade your meats if you've got them.  In this case, a bit of soy sauce, black pepper, and cayenne pepper did nicely.  It doesn't really matter if you don't marinade it for very long; the flavor is there to sear in.

2.  Stir-frying stuff.

The most important thing to not screwing up a stir fry is the order in which you put in the ingredients.

When you first start out, you have a fresh, hot pan with some hot oil.  As you add ingredients, your ability to apply high heat or hot oil (read: fry) your ingredients diminishes.  As you add vegetables, any moisture that comes out will further reduce your ability to brown or sear.

Thus, add first the ingredients that you want to get a nice sear on, or maybe things that requires the full application of heat to cook.  This generally translates to meat, but some people like to put in garlic or hot peppers for the seared flavor first.

In my case, I put in the chicken first, then the garlic, onions, and carrots all in a bunch after the chicken had been sufficiently browned.  Since none of these ingredients gave off much water when cooked, the chicken could continue to brown while everything else was cooking.  The udon noodles were added last (noodles generally are cooked in water first, then added to the rest of the ingredients more or less to mix).

Frozen udon, according to the package, should be cooked in boiling water until loose.  I'm pretty sure these came precooked, so as soon as they were more or less floating loosely in the boiling water, I drained them and tossed them into the pan with the meat and vegetables.  Season with a couple swigs of soy sauce, pepper, and a little bit of salt (since soy sauce provides most of the saltiness one needs), and the yakiudon was good to go.  The end result: