Mì Xào Giòn
Serves 3-4.
Ingredients:
Canadian Style Wonton Mein
1 lb. flank or sirloin, thinly sliced
1 lb. Cai Lan (Chinese broccoli) ~ about 6 cups worth
canola or vegetable oil
salt
half onion (yellow or white), sliced
8 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
3 inch piece of ginger, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup shiitake mushrooms, halved
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. Canola
2 tbsp. flour
½ cup oyster sauce
2 tbsp. hoisin sauce
1 tsp. sugar
½ tsp. sesame oil
2 cups vegetable stock, reserved from boiled Cai Lan (Chinese Broccoli)
fresh-ground black pepper
The Beta:
On medium/high heat, bring a little less than one inch of oil to frying temperature (roughly 350 degrees) in a ten inch pan. Gently unroll each portion of noodles and separate any tightly bound sections until you have a loose ball. Drop individual portions into the oil, trying to fill the surface area of the pan. Fry for roughly one minute on each side until golden brown and crispy. Set aside each portion of crispy noodles on a sheet pan layered with paper towels until time to serve. Noodles can also be stored in air-tight containers at room temperature for up to a week.
In a large stock pot, bring about 8 cups of water to boil (about half the pot). Salt the water generously and then add the Cai Lan. Boil for 1 minute and then drain, setting aside 2 cups of the broth to use later.
Coat a dutch oven or pan with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and then add the onion and garlic over medium heat. When soft, add the ginger and shitake mushrooms, and let the mixture cook until lightly browned. Add the thinly sliced beef and cook until it is almost all brown with some pink still showing. Remove everything from the pan and set aside in a bowl.
In the same dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons of canola oil and then whisk in 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour to create a roux. Very slowly add in the 2 cups of stock, whisking vigorously to prevent lumps. When everything is incorporated, add in the remaining ingredients (oyster sauce, sugar, hoisin, and sesame oil). Reduce heat to a lazy simmer and leave the roux to thicken slightly.
With the Cai Lan now cool, cut into smaller, bite-sized pieces. Fold the Cai Lan as well as the beef mixture into the roux, and then season with fresh ground black pepper.
Plate with the noodles on bottom and the Cai Lan and beef assembled in the center. Spoon the roux generously around the noodles. Finish with sriracha (optional).
A Fam Fave:
This is a working recipe that Tom attempted to recreate from his childhood. The whole inspiration for making this dish was the fact that we had Cai Lan in our fridge. He had to work, so he sent his white friend (me) off to H Mart to find all the ingredients. I ended up calling him at least twice and also texted his sister Thu for noodle beta (You can find her recipe for the same dish here). Tommy and Thu grew up eating this at restaurants in Houston or at home when they came home from college, but he had never made it himself. He asked his mom for the ingredients, and she responded with a list and no measurements. So we recreated the roux tablespoon by tablespoon—Tom stirred and tasted while I scribbled notes.
The most fun part of this recipe is cooking the noodles. When you drop the portions into the oil they sort of spread out and seize all at once. Actually, the first one Tom dropped made the oil overflow into a large puddle on our electric range (one perk to dumb electric ranges). This would prove to be one of a few mistakes that didn’t ruin our meal -- they never do.
I ended up frying the rest of our eight portions of noodles. We were a party of three, but knowing we’d have leftover sauce, we fried up two packages planning to set the others aside for a later lunch and dinner. Thu has the best solution for frying which is to make your nests on a pan before dropping them in. This helps you get a loose ball of noodles that will spread out when they hit the oil. I was sort of experimenting with ways to get the perfect circle of noodles, but I think the best way to do it is to keep it loose and spread them out fast. It takes practice, and I didn’t master it in my seven attempts (though I think the video above shows a fine example).
While I played with the noodles, Tommy did the harder work of slicing all our onions, garlic, ginger, and flank steak. We actually forgot to put ginger on our list, but luckily we had saved a small, dehydrated piece for some unknown reason. It ended up still being plenty flavorful. I suppose the lesson here is to not throw your produce away until it starts to rot on the counter. Or you know, just eat the damn food you buy. We also forgot the mushrooms on our first go, but made up for it a few days later with round two (unfortunately we had no more ginger).
Everything from here was pretty straightforward cooking until we got to the roux. For some reason it didn’t occur to us the way two tablespoons of flour would react in a pile of sauce. We had already added some of the stock and most of the oyster sauce, and the flour clumped immediately and refused to dissolve. We ended up straining the lumps from the sauce and setting it aside while we started the roux over again the proper way with oil and flour. Then we added the previously strained sauce back in and incorporated it slowly.
After two rounds, Tommy thought the sugar content was a little high, so we reduced it from a tablespoon to a teaspoon. Our advice as always: Taste it before you plate it.