Beef Chow Fun
Units
Temperature
Servings
Ingredients
Beef and marinade
- 250 g flank steak, sliced very thinly against the grain rounded
- 15 ml water rounded
- 1 g bicarbonate of soda, tenderiser; rinse off after 30 minutes rounded
- 8 g cornflour rounded
- 15 ml oyster sauce rounded
- 15 ml Shaoxing wine rounded
- 10 ml light soy sauce rounded
Sauce
- 22 ml dark soy sauce rounded
- 15 ml light soy sauce rounded
- 8 g sugar rounded
- 3 ml toasted sesame oil rounded
Noodles and vegetables
- 500 g fresh wide rice noodles, ho fun, at room temperature; see substitutions rounded
- 45 ml neutral oil rounded
- 200 g bean sprouts rounded
- 4 scallions, cut into 5 cm lengths rounded
- 1 onion, sliced rounded
Method
Method
- Tenderise the beef. Mix the slices with the water and bicarbonate of soda and leave 30 minutes, then rinse thoroughly under cold water and pat dry. Skipping the rinse leaves a soapy taste. Now mix in the cornflour, oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine and soy sauce.
- Bring the noodles to room temperature and separate them by hand. If they came from the fridge, leave them out for an hour, or microwave them in short bursts until pliable. Peel the ribbons apart gently one at a time. Cold noodles are brittle and will break into short scraps no matter how carefully you cook them.
- Mix the sauce and keep it ready.
- Sear the beef in a screaming hot wok. Add a third of the oil, spread the beef in one layer, leave it 60 to 90 seconds to take colour, then toss briefly and remove while still slightly underdone.
- Fry the onion in a little more oil for 1 minute.
- Add the noodles and leave them alone. Add the remaining oil, tip in the noodles, spread them out and let them sit undisturbed for 30 to 40 seconds at a time so they blister and char in spots. Turn them with a spatula rather than stirring, and be gentle.
- Sauce and finish. Pour the sauce around the rim, toss two or three times only, then add the beef, bean sprouts and scallions. Toss once more and get it out of the pan. Every extra toss breaks more noodles.
Notes
- This dish is a heat test. The smoky flavour that makes chow fun worth ordering comes from the noodles scorching against very hot metal. A domestic burner struggles; cook one portion at a time and get the pan as hot as it will go.
- Handle the noodles as little as possible. Fewer, larger movements with a spatula beat constant stirring. Broken noodles taste the same but the dish loses its character.
- Bean sprouts go in at the very end, as everywhere on this shelf.
- The bicarbonate of soda is what makes restaurant beef velvety. Thirty minutes, then a thorough rinse, no exceptions.
Ingredient substitutions
- Fresh wide rice noodles (ho fun, sha he fen) are sold refrigerated at Asian grocers in Germany and Canada, usually in a folded slab. Dried wide rice noodles soaked until pliable are the fallback and hold together better, though they lack the silky chew. Never refrigerate fresh ones if you can avoid it.
- Oyster sauce substitutes with vegetarian mushroom oyster-style sauce.
- Flank steak can be sirloin, skirt or any lean cut sliced thinly against the grain.