New England Style

Yield: 4 servings

Adapted from Tom Lin and David Rosengarten

13-Jun-15: It took quite a search to come up with this recipe. This is chow mein the way I remember it from New England. Colorado and Southern California don’t often offer it this way. Here it almost always has soft noodles cooked into it.  Mein, meaning noodle, is probably a good indication of this being more traditional.  My better version uses hard noodles, a cracker like, stick chow mein noodle from the supermarket.  I think these are the same noodle, but deep fried.  You’re more likely to get strips of fried wonton skins if you order Chow Mein in SoCal restaurants.  Soy sauce is also not included, which makes this a white sauce.

Mise, Mise, Mise, get your mise together! This means me! This happens so fast, that you must get everything prepped and measured before cooking starts.

Chicken & Marinade

• ½lb boneless, skinless chicken meat, cut into pieces about ½″ wide
• 1pinch salt
• 2pinches white pepper
• 2tsp sesame seed oil
• 1egg white
• 2TBS corn starch
• 1TBS cooking oil

Vegetables

• 1-2TBS cooking oil
• 1tsp minced garlic
• 1tsp minced shallot
• 1tsp Shaoxing cooking wine
• 2cups celery thinly sliced on the diagonal (about ⅛″ thick)
• 2cups thinly sliced onions (about ⅛″ thick)
• 1tsp sugar
• 2firmly packed cups shredded Napa cabbage (about ½ of cabbage) (pieces about ½″ wide)
• 1½cups fresh mung bean sprouts

Sauce

• ¾tsp salt
• black pepper
• 1tsp sesame oil
• 1cup chicken stock

Slurry

• 1TBS (approximate) cornstarch
• 2TBS water

Serve

• 1cup chow mein noodles (crispy room-temperature ones) or fried wonton skin strips
  

Marinate chicken:
In a bowl, add the chicken, a pinch of salt, a pinch of white pepper, 1 tsp sesame oil, egg white and mix to coat. Add cornstarch and mix. Add 1 TBS of cooking oil and mix.

Slurry:
Mix 1 TBS corn starch with 2 TBS water and set aside.

Stir Fry:
Place a very large wok over high heat, and let it sit for a minute. Add 1 to 2 TBS cooking oil, spilling it around the sides of the wok. Heat until it’s smoking,

Add, garlic and shallot, stir fry 30 seconds.

Toss in the celery and the onions. Sprinkle ½ tsp of the sugar and Shaoxing cooking wine over them and stir well. Stir-fry for 2 minutes, then push the celery-onion mixture to the side of the wok, leaving the center empty.

If the wok is dry, add a little more cooking oil. Add the chicken to the center of the wok and stir-fry until the chicken browns slightly and loses its pink color (about 2-3 minutes). Toss with celery and onions, bringing the mass into the center of the wok.

Add the Napa cabbage and bean sprouts to the wok, tossing with the other ingredients already in the wok. Add the remaining ½ tsp of sugar and toss again. Turn heat down to medium-high, and let mixture cook for 5 minutes; the vegetables should start losing their distinctness and merge together.

Add the stock and sesame oil and toss. When the stock is boiling, add most of the slurry to the wok, stirring immediately. If you’d like the chow mein to be a little thicker, add more slurry. Remove chow mein from heat. Serve