Chicken Chow Mein - Marion's Kitchen

Okay guys, this is one very special noodle dish. We're going to treat these noodles with so much love. They're going to be chewy and a beautiful, savoury stir-fry. This is chicken chow mein noodles like you've never seen them before. The reason this noodle dish is so special is that we're going to cook these noodles 3 times. That's right. It's going to be a lot of love and care into our beautiful noodles. First off, let's talk about what noodles we need to use. We're using these fresh egg noodles. Sometimes they're called wonton noodles. You'll find these in the fridge section of your Asian supermarket. What you need to do first of all is just unravel them. They come all bunched up. Just pull them apart. Just loosen them up a little bit. These noodles are going to need to be boiled first. Then we're going to dry them out and then we're going to stir-fry them. I know, sounds so OTT for a noodle stir-fry. But can I tell you, the results are totally worth it. You get this almost crispy, but beautiful, tender noodle at the end. This one is just for you guys who are obsessed with noodles like me. I'm loosening these up because we want to make sure we get them all evenly cooked in the water. You'll see what I mean. The water-cooking part is going to happen really quickly. We've got our nice big bunch of noodles here. We want to pop them straight into some boiling water. This part happens super quick guys. If you overcook at this point, you are just screwed for the rest of the recipe. Basically, literally, like 20 seconds. Pull them out. Then get them straight into some ice water. This ice water stops them cooking. Just move them around, make sure they're nice and cool to the touch. What we want to do is really stop that cooking so that they don't get all mushy. This is that really beautiful noodle dish that you get in a lot of dim sum restaurants. It's a very particular kind of noodle. I think as with a lot of really great Chinese dishes, involves a little bit of technique. That's why we're going through these extra steps. Noodles are nice and cold. Now, I want to make sure they're really nice and dry. I'm going to pull out bunches and I'm going to squeeze the water out. You can find in some Asian grocers, noodles that are labelled Hong Kong style noodles. Those noodles are just like these, but they've already been parboiled and dried. They're already ready to stir-fry, but I find that kind of difficult to find. That's why I'm doing this extra step with you guys, so we can see what we need to do to get the right texture. Because we have not overcooked our beautiful fresh egg noodles, see how light and beautifully separate they are on the tray. I'm going to dry these out even further. I'm going to pop them into the fridge, uncovered, for about half an hour. While our noodles are doing their thing, we're going to marinate the chicken. I've just got some chicken thighs here, really nice thin slices. I'm going to add some soy sauce and some Chinese cooking wine. Another little secret ingredient we're going to use here is baking soda. The baking soda is going to help to tenderise the chicken and give it a really silky texture when it cooks. For a little bit of extra flavour, we want some white pepper. Now give all of that a mix. The next thing we want to do is our stir-fry sauce. I'm starting off with a little bit of oyster sauce. I'm going to add some soy sauce and some dark soy sauce for some colour. Again, a little bit more of the Chinese cooking wine and just a little dash of sugar. I always find just a little dash of sweetness helps to round out the flavour of the salty stir-fry sauce. Let's give that a mix. Our noodles have come out of the fridge. What I want to do is just divide them up into little batches. I just find this is much easier to stir-fry them if they're in smaller batches. Then we're going to get these into a hot wok. The whole idea here is that we want to get some crispy bits, a little bit of browning on the noodle. You'll see what happens. This is our second cook for these noodles. My, these noodles are getting some love today. A little bit of oil. Swirl it around in the pan. I am using a wok for this, but you can totally use, I would recommend, a non-stick frying pan for this one if you're not going to use a seasoned wok. Noodles go in. Just spread them out. Just let them sit for a little bit. I want them to get a little bit of colour on that bottom part before I start to mess around with them. Give them a bit of a flip. See, we're starting to get some nice colour there. Flip them over. Let them sit for a little bit. Get some colour. Flip them again. Just keep doing that until we've got some nice, beautiful colour all over. You can add a little bit more oil if your noodles do start to stick. These are looking good. Scoop them out onto a tray or a plate. Don't worry if they're a little bit sticky at the moment. They will loosen up once we get them into the third cooking stage with our stir-fry sauce. The final stir-frying part. As with any stir-fry, you want to make sure all your bits and pieces are all prepped before you start the cooking. I have some spring onions here. Just wanted to point out, I have sliced up the white or the pale part of the spring onion. I'm going to stir-fry those first. I'm going to save these green pieces for the end. I've got my stir-fry sauce, ginger, my vegetables and my chicken. Let's do some sizzling. A little bit of oil in your wok or your frying pan. I want the pale part of that spring onion going in. Some finely sliced ginger. I want to get my chicken straight in there. Whenever you're stir-frying any kind of protein in a wok, try and spread it out so that all the pieces come into contact with that hot, hot pan. Once that chicken is cooked, I'm going to add in my vegetables. I'm just using some carrot and some cabbage. You could use mushrooms, capsicum, green Asian vegetables, whatever you like. Toss those through until the vegetables are softened. Now, time for our noodles and the stir-fry sauce. Look at that. Beautifully cooked noodles. Nothing sticking together. So good. I'm going to add in my spring onion. You'll want to get in there with tongs and spatula for this. Move everything around. Mix it through. You'll see those noodles loosen up. Just to give this a little extra oomph at the end, I'm going to add in a little drizzle of sesame oil. Adding this in at the end keeps the fragrance really fresh and really strong. If you do it at the beginning, you kind of lose some of that intensity. Now we just serve these up. This is the perfect texture. They're dry, the noodles. They'll have a nice chew to them. A beautiful coating of our sauce. Now an optional little bit of flavour, I like to add a little bit of extra spice. A little drizzle of chilli oil, or some chilli paste, or some sambal oelek. All good things to kind of have with these noodles. Let's see how we've gone here. Look at these beautiful noodles. Nice and separate. Not sticky or clumpy. I've cooked these noodles 3 times and they have the most beautiful, chewy, really al dente kind of texture. It really is quite amazing. I know this is like lots of extra steps for noodles guys, but wow. If you love noodles, you need to give this a go.