Chow Mein

For years I've tried to replicate the flavor of chinese sauces but to no avail! At last I've found that the secret ingredient seems to be Oyster Sauce. I found a recipe online and made a few changes - delicious! I cooked it once with some crispy egg noodles from King Chwan on Ocean Street. This time I bought fresh egg noodles from an asian market in San Francisco (DELICIOUS!). If you have your own egg noodles the way to make them crispy is to cook them and then fry them in a (preferably) cast iron pan with a little oil (peanut and/or sesame oil give it a nice asian flavor).

Dissolve:

1 tbsp cornstarch (I used potato starch)

in

4 tbsp water

 

Then whisk in:

1/4 cup chicken broth or water (I used chicken broth)

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp fish sauce with chili (optional)

salt and pepper to taste 

Add to whatever you put it on while still in the pan so that the sauce can soak into the dish at a high temperature. Also, if you want to make a stir fry with this sauce, try marinating the meat or tofu in:

1 tbsp oytser sauce

1 tsp soy sauce (or more, as desired)

And enough broth to cover the food (the broth from rehydrating mushrooms, especially shiitakes, works very well)

I went a little crazy at the asian market and I also bought black fungus, cuttle fish, and shiitake mushrooms for the chow mein. The black fungus was a tasty cross between a broccoli type vegetable and a mushroom and it went great with the dish.