15 June 2011

Beef Lo Mein

Relatively simple to make, and quite filling.  Not recommended for those on the Atkins regimen.

Preparation time:  15 min. once noodles are cooked
Serves:  Five

You will most certainly need:
a pound and a half of spaghetti (or soft noodles, if you like)
one pound-plus of stir fry-style beef strips --> marinated overnight with soy sauce, a touch of Worchestershire, garlic, and a generous spoonful of horseradish
one cup peas
one large white or yellow onion, five cloves garlic, a shallot or two
one cup mushroom, sliced
cooking oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce, 2 tsp sugar, and sriracha

Directions:
Begin by boiling up a pot of water for your noodles; if using spaghetti boil for seven or eight minutes until al dente, otherwise use as directed.  You may use this time to arrange your ingredients, chop your onion, arrange your socks, etc.  Once the noodles are boiled and drained, place into a large bowl.  In a smaller bowl add two tsp of sugar, five or six tbs of soy sauce, and two tbs of the oyster sauce; stir together and microwave for 20 seconds, then apply liberally to the bowled noodles with three cloves of minced garlic and a slight drizzling of cooking oil.  Take two forks and fluff, then add your cup of peas (I used frozen; fluff again and allow the scalding-hot pasta to simply warm them up, or use fresh!) and leave off to the stovetop.
Cover the bottom of a wok with a thin layer of oil and heat it up to HI.  After a minute or so, add your marinated beef (see underlined text in ingredients for details).  Let fry for a minute, then flip; once flipped, add your chopped onion and remaining two mashed cloves of garlic, then squirt a substantial wavelength of sriracha atop that.  Giving it a minute (wait for it), mix the current wok ingredients well together, letting it sizzle and stirring occasionally while slicing the mushrooms.  Add them to the mix, stir together, then turn the heat down to a MED level.  
Now comes the marriage of the two stages:  add the prepared noodles to the wok, and opting for the earlier two forks (rather than a spatula) begin fluffing them together with the beef/onion/et al, minding not to fire peas all over the place.  Take your time with this, allowing the noodles a brief time to each touch the bottom of the wok (and the juices and so forth therein).  Once mixed, the lo mein should be ready to serve!


{Optional ingredients:  diced celery, snow or snap peas, minced carrots... most anything that sounds plausible and complementary will suffice.}

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