Wok Wednesdays | Beef Chow Fun

WW wokking through Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge
by Grace Young

Beef chow fun - a popular dish in Cantonese restaurants. I was excited for making this dish, for I am a lover of all pasta; and this dish includes wide cut noodles, my favorite, though the noodles in this dish are made with rice, not with your typical wide egg noodles.

Mise en place.

Bowl 1: Ginger, garlic

Bowl 2: Flank steak, soy sauce, cornstarch, sesame oil

Bowl 3: Fermented beans

Bowl 4: Rice noodles

Bowl 5: Bean sprouts

Bowl 6: Scallions

Bowl 7: White pepper

Bowl 8: Oyster sauce, dry sherry

 

My husband asked if we had this before. I replied, nope! We're having beef chow fun!

Oh, Jeff & I have that all the time. You do? Hubby tells me, when he and Jeff, a co-worker, have to grab a quick bite to eat before a class or meeting, they go up the street to the Chinese restaurant and order beef chow fun. Well, whataya know!

"... this dish is a major test for chefs in Cantonese cooking," as noted in Wikepedia. 

Ha! I failed! Better keep my day job.

I had a little issue with the noodles as you can see. The recipe calls for fresh broad rice noodles, that come in a sheet, and you can cut them to size. I could not find the noodles in sheet form, so I purchased, what I thought were pre-cut, close to the size I wanted.

Only come to find, they were not cut at all, but rolled. I tried unrolling them, and this proved to be quite difficult, if not impossible. I was able to unroll them after cutting the strips into approximately half-inch pieces. This however, took me about twenty to thirty minutes to complete.

After tediously unrolling, I placed the noodles into a bowl and they were sticking to each other something awful. I had posted a question to the group FB page, and was told by another member to oil my hands, and work the noodles gently. It did help separate them, but they started to break apart - so I stopped, and forged on.  (After I had made dinner, I found that I could have just cut the noodles as I did, and tossed them into the wok, where they would have unrolled on their own..)

Clumpy noodles or not, this was fabulous! Andy, said he actually liked the noodles this way; not to mention it's way better than what he and Jeff have on class night. So, not a total fail. :)

I will definitely be making this again, once I get a chance to find the correct style noodles.

We have been asked not to post the recipes here on our blog. If you would like the recipe, you will find it on page 269, of  Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge, which you can purchase at your local bookstore or find it at your local library. I highly recommend purchasing the book - you won't be disappointed.  

Wok Wednesdays is an online cooking group. If you would like information about joining us, click here, or visit us on Facebook. Would love for you to wok along with us!