Cooking authentic Chinese food as someone with no Chinese heritage means coming to terms with a few things: first, Chinese cuisine is full of cultural significance and history, beyond the scope of what I could research on my own; second, a regular nonstick cooking pan and a wok are not even remotely comparable; and third, Panda Express is a sin- delicious, and fast, and wonderful, but a sin.

My decision to cook chow fun brought me to reckoning with all of these things. The dish is a Chinese classic, developed and perfected in the incorrectly anglicized province of Canton, known more properly as Guangdong. Like Guangdong, chow fun itself has been incorrectly Americanized; it’s one of the many noodle-based foods that became the inspiration for the Frankenstein’s monster that is American chow mein. Chow fun itself is a little “too Chinese” for America— it boasts a soft rice noodle, uses the rich and rarer dark soy sauce, and is topped off with tender bean sprouts. Guangdong chefs still consider a perfectly cooked chow fun to be a Chinese cuisine rite of passage, and as far as local favorites go, there are few noodle dishes more comforting (or unhealthy!)

This recipe will probably not gain you the seal of approval from Guangdong chefs, but it is a delicious, authentic alternative to another box of fried chow mein. The only things you need are a standard frying pan and a spatula.

The first step to cooking chow fun is marinating your beef. While you can use any type of steak if you are dedicated enough, flank steak or pre-sliced “stir-fry steak” are the easiest to cut properly. Your strips should be approximately 1/8^th to 1/4^th inch pieces.

Once you’ve sliced your beef strips, combine them in your vessel of choice with the other ingredients for your marinade- baking soda, oil, corn starch, and soy sauce. This needs to marinate for at least an hour, although as with any marinade, the longer you can let it sit, the better. This is an excellent time to schedule in work on some household chores, a little homework, or staring at both your household chores and homework without actually doing them so you can regret it later.

Once your beef is done marinating, it’s time to prepare the other ingredients. Because this is a stir-fry dish, it is essential that everything be ready to go in the pan once you get started. This is referred to as mise en place—something I learned from my personal idol, Chef Anne Burrell. For this recipe, that means measuring out the oil, rice wine, dark and regular soy sauces, bean sprouts, and sesame oil, as well as slicing the green onions and ginger. If you are using dried rice noodles, this will also mean boiling those.

Turn your eye to a high heat, and coat it with about half of your oil. Once it has reached temperature, add your meat to sear it. The meat should be lightly browned, but still pink in areas—we are not fully cooking it here. Once most of it has a nice color to it, remove it from the pan and set it aside to rest.

Pour your remaining oil in the pan, and add your ginger slices. We’re looking to infuse the oil with the flavor of the ginger, so feel free to move the ginger around in whatever pattern you feel is most flavorful. I’m partial to figure-8s. After about 15 seconds, or once your ginger starts to look a bit crispy, add your onion slices. Mix these thoroughly with the ginger for a few seconds, and then add your noodles.

Your noodles will quickly start to get a bit of color, so to keep them from burning, stir them quickly (but carefully!) until they are thoroughly mixed with the ginger and onions. Next, add your rice wine around the rim of your pan. Rice wine has a strong and abrasive flavor, so we want to keep it from being directly absorbed by the noodles.

Now it’s time to add our sauce. Add your dark soy sauce, sesame oil, regular soy sauce, and a pinch of sugar. Follow with salt and pepper to taste. Be cautious when salting! If you’re not accustomed to eating dishes with soy sauce, it’s easy to underestimate the salty flavor this dish already has. Taste a noodle before you go crazy.

Add the beef back in. The dish should be looking more like what we expect of Chinese noodles, thanks to the color in the soy sauces; make sure to stir from the bottom so that every single noodle and beef slice gets coated with that delicious goodness. Stir until your beef is completely cooked.

Your final dish should be uniformly colored, and radiate the rich umami scent of its sauce. Eat and enjoy!

 

Ingredients                                                                                     

For the beef and marinade:

8 oz steak, sliced

¼ tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. corn starch

1 tsp. regular soy sauce

1 tsp. oil (of your choice)

 

For the main dish:

12 oz. rice noodles

3 tbsp. oil (of your choice)

4 scallions, halved in 3-inch sections

3 slices of ginger

2 tsp. rice wine

½ tsp. sesame oil

2 tbsp. dark soy sauce

2 tbsp. regular soy sauce

a pinch of sugar

salt and pepper to taste

 

To cook:

1.      Combine marinade ingredients in a container. Marinate for 1 hour.

2.      Using 1 ½ tbsp. of oil, sear your beef strips, then set aside.

3.      Using remaining oil, add ginger to pan and stir.

4.      After 15 seconds, add scallions and noodles.

5.      Add rice wine around the rim of the pan.

6.      Add the sesame oil, dark soy sauce, regular soy sauce, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.

7.      Add the beef back to the pan, stirring well.

8.      Add the bean sprouts, and cook until tender.