Chow Mein

We got a wok! This is more of a chow mein template than a chow mein recipe–it works so many ways! Based on damndelicious.net easy chow mein

• ~1lb noodles (Nanka Seimen chow mein egg/udon noodles are my favorite but they got hard to find. Any noodle with a nice bite will work.)
• Veggies chopped or sliced
• Sauce

I like to select 3-4 of these or whatever else sounds good:

• 1 large carrot cut into matchsticks
• 4 baby bok choy, coarsely chopped
• a fist-size hunk of green cabbage, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 1 cup peas
• 1 bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• a few oz mushrooms, sliced

Original sauce recipe:

• 1/4 cup oyster sauce
• 1 T soy sauce
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 t freshly grated ginger
• 1 t sriracha

I first replaced the oyster sauce with brown braising sauce, which is mostly corn syrup and msg, and it was so delicious. We ran out and I tried veggie oyster sauce, which is mushroom based. It wasn't as sweet as I wanted and has some other flavor I'm not as fond of, so when using that I do something more like:

• 2-3 T mushroom not-oyster sauce
• 2-3 T soy sauce
• 1-3 t brown sugar
• garlic and ginger as above

1. Pre-cook the noodles and then fry them alone using ~1T oil in the wok for a few minutes, until they reach your desired level of browned and crisped. Move noodles to the eventual serving bowl and set aside.
2. Heat more oil in the wok and briefly sautee any of the veggies that need to soften (carrots, onion, mushrooms, pepper…).
3. Add veggies that you want to wilt (bok choy, cabbage…) for just a minute.
4. Stir in the noodles and sauce to fry for a minute or two longer.
5. Toss in any veggies staying crisp (bean sprouts, maybe peas…) and serve.

originally submitted by jes_p on Jul 16, 2020