Although food historians can’t really agree on who made the first chow mein and when, this stir-fry dish whose name comes from the Mandarin chǎomiàn and Taishanese chāu-mèing (lit. fried noodles) had probably originated in Northern China.
And even though there are as many varieties of chow mein in China as there are regional cuisines, the method of preparation is basically the same. The noodles are boiled and fried until crispy on the outside but still soft in the middle, then tossed with shredded pieces of meat (chicken, pork, beef or seafood) in a classic stir-fry sauce, which is often flavored with rice wine.
Chinese Chow Mein Noodles | (炒面 – Chǎomiàn)
Course: MainCuisine: ChineseDifficulty: Medium4
servings20
minutes15
minutes300
kcal35
minutesAlthough food historians can’t really agree on who made the first chow mein and when, this stir-fry dish whose name comes from the Mandarin chǎomiàn and Taishanese chāu-mèing (lit. fried noodles) had probably originated in Northern China.
Ingredients
Cantonese Egg Noodles, 100g
Jiucai, “Chinese Chives”, 50g
Bean Sprouts, 70g
Half of a Shallot
Quarter of a White Onion
- For Sauce:
Boiling Water, 5 TBSP.
Sugar, 1 TBSP.
Dark Soy Sauce, 1 TBSP
Light Soy Sauce, 2 tsp
Sesame Oil, 1 tsp
Thick Soy Sauce, ½ TBSP
Fish Sauce, ½ tsp
Directions
- Prep your veggies. Cut the jiucai (“Chinese Chives”) into sections, dice your shallot, slice the onion, and (if doing so) prepare your silver sprouts.
- Cook the noodles. Before you toss your noodles in, take 5 TBSP boiling water for the sauce in step #4.
- Rinse, drain, and cover your noodles. Once it’s finished, in a colander rinse your noodles thoroughly under cold running water to stop the cooking process.
- Prepare your sauce. Whisk in the sugar into those 5 TBSP of boiling water that you reserved. Then add in the rest of the ingredients for the sauce and give it a mix.
- Sweat the jiucai and the bean sprouts.
- Oil your wok using the longyau technique. I’m separating this into a separate step, but we’re going to be doing this three times over the next three steps.
- The longyau technique is this: get your wok nice and hot over a high flame, pour some oil and swirl it around to coat the wok and get a nice non-stick surface, and then pour out any excess oil. The amount of oil that we drain will be different for each ingredient.
- Fry your shallots.
- Fry your onions.
- Fry your noodles. for 30 seconds on low medium heat
- Add your sauce and reduce it in the noodles.
