Blogs

Sep
11

Wafuu Pasuta – Japanese Cuisine meets Italian Pasta


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Are you a fan of our Chicken Pasta? One of our most popular dishes, Chicken Pasta combines Japanese succulent fried chicken bites (Tori no Karaage), lightly sauteed vegetables, and our tangy secret white sauce over piping hot spaghetti. It may come as a surprise to the uninitiated, but the spaghetti option on our menu is not an American interpretation, but a thoroughly Japanese dish referred to as “Wafuu Pasuta”, aka Japanese-style Pasta.


Following the Meiji Revolution in the mid-1800s, Chinese wheat and rice-based noodles entered the Japanese diet, evolving into the much-loved dietary staples of ramen, udon, and somen. Sometime following World War II, Italian style pastas made their appearance in Japan, complete with Italian sauces, yet the incorporation of uniquely Japanese sauces and toppings did not make an appearance until the mid 1970s.


“Pasuta” dishes blend Italian wheat and egg noodles with distinctly Japanese ingredients such as Japanese curry, fish roe, seaweed, or Shiitake mushrooms, and a curious sauce based on ketchup known as supagetti Napolitan. Most wafuu pasuta dishes are easy to throw together, and are therefor regular staples in Japanese home cooking. You can find just a few of the hundreds of possibilities here. Note that acheiving a more “Japanese” texture requires cooking the pasta a little longer past the “al dente” point.


On a lighter note – here is a Japanese song dedicated to wafuu pasta: Kona to mizu de dekiteiru! さぁ、お湯をひと沸かししよう (Let’s Boil Hot Water). Enjoy!