Chow Mein Recipe

westcoastsc 2 months, 2 weeks ago said:
Man, I signed up for this place to find good recipes, but While I have found many good dishes, they are not described properly. Chow Mein is a dish which consists of fried noodles. Mein literally means noodles. The noodles make the dish chow mein. This sounds like it tastes good, but it isnt chow mein because the tricky part of chow mein is how you prepare the noodles. first of all, highest heat in wok or frying pan. Dont worry, you wont be as hot as a restaurant wok in your home no matter what you do. for the noodles, you will boil the noodles if dried about 7-9 minutes, or if fresh around three minutes. plunge into cold water to stop cooking, add a little oil (canola) to prevent sticky clumping and toss it up. Now you will fry the noodles, thats right, chow mein noodles are cooked TWICE. Boiled then fried. add very small amount of oil, maybe a pinch of crushed ginger, and fry in small handfuls until golden for chow mein, or lightly browned for lo mein. Remove noodles, cook meats and veggies desired (use a little water instead of oil for bok choy or broccoli to steam it, and cover.)seperately to get good sear, then at the end add all ingredients,make a "well" in the center and add sauce, then stir in sauce and its ready to serve.

Additional notes: get a small plate and as you cook the noodles, only cook a small handful at a time as your wok or frying pan isnt hot enough to cook noodles in large batches. You want to use minimal oil, like maybe a teaspoon per batch, or else the noodles get oily. It can take a while to cook enough noodles for a large family style dish, I usually make two batches in quick succession when I "plate" the dish, which is what the final step is. The actual cooking is done in stages ingredient by ingredient, so that good high temperature cooking can be done at each step.