How Chinese Chefs cook CHICKEN CHOW MEIN 🍜 Mum and Son professional chefs cook

Two words and that's chicken chow mein. So easy, so simple and today we are going to be showing you how to do it aren't we Ma? Yeah and it's so so delicious. Very delicious. Probably one of the only things on a Chinese takeaway menu that is very close to something traditional Chinese I'd say. Yeah. Also if you'd like to see more traditional Chinese food you need to comment below. We need to know that's what you guys want to watch. Which is completely different from anything you know. I'm just warning you. Yes you've been warned. Yeah. So we have been given these today by Lucky Boat themselves. We haven't been paid anything for this we've just been given these and obviously we always say good takeaways are going to be using Lucky Boat noodles because they are in our opinion the best brands you can get. These are available now. Yeah at our web store. No they're not on our web store yet. They will be soon. Anyway I've not actually looked in these so we thought we'd do a bit of an opening as well as a cooking. Yeah opening. Where's the cooking? Let's have a look. Oh there we go. One, two, four blocks. That's actually good going. That's nice. Yeah four block. Yeah they seem, I don't know if they seem smaller. It was just in my head. I don't think they are. No they're the same. Yeah they're the same size. Just our ones normally come flatter. I think it's the same weight. It feels the same weight. And we have done a chow mein video before haven't we? Yeah we have. We've done quite a few now. But in previous times people have had a lot of questions so we hope to do what we did with the fried rice and give you more information. So hopefully this time this will be more of a thorough video. When this water is up to a rolling boil we're going to take one block of noodles and we're going to place them into the pan. Now these actually come in two different sizes. You've got thin and you've got thick which is what we're using today. As we would know them though these would be number ones and the thin ones are number twos. And we're going to place these into the boiling water for three and a half to four minutes. Take them out, rinse them under cold water and let them drain for about 20 minutes. A couple of people always say why do my noodles stick to my wok? What's one reason Ma? One reason is over boil and not run under the water for long enough. So essentially you've overcooked them. If you overcook them they tend to go really stodgy and gloopy. One of the reasons why we rinse them under cold water is stop the cooking process and also to take off any extra starch. So Ma why do we drain them? Oh to drain them to let it dry out. So when you use your noodles straight away into a hot pan sometimes, not every time, but sometimes they will continue to cook even more and the wet layer on the outside of the noodle will make it go sticky and stodgy as well. And again makes it hard for your vegetables and your meat and stuff to combine into the dish. Also if your noodles are sticking to the wok there could be two more reasons. One is what Ma? There's not enough oil. Yeah so when you do chow mein you actually need quite a bit of oil. Another reason is? The wok is not seasoned. Yeah so in our case it doesn't because we're using non-stick. But if you're using a carbon steel wok at home you might need to season it another time. If you want a seasoning video you need to comment below and we'll show you how to do that. But in our opinion you don't need to use carbon steel at home. We only use them in a commercial kitchen because the temperature is so high the non-stick can't keep up with it. It will literally just incinerate away. At home non-stick is perfectly good. The most this will get up to is three kilowatts. Our wok burners in a takeaway will be 45 kilowatts. There's a massive disparity in power. It all means you can use a wok at home, carbon steel wok. Fantastic that's fine it's just it's not needed to get the actual flavours. It's very easy to do in a non-stick. And third reason why your noodles are probably sticking is because you're using a non-stick and the non-stick layer has now come off so you need a new wok. And that's that's about it really. Yeah we cover in all aspects. Okay so mum's going to prep the onion by just obviously always taking the root off and then the head off as well. We're just going to use half of this so we're going to cut it in half. We're going to remove the skin. So we're going to cut it along those ridges there and it's sheerly for aesthetic reasons. When you cut it this way you get those bumpy rainbows. I So it's with the grain this time so against the grain. Yeah it's it's how you get the bumpy stuff with the grain so you get the nice long slivers. So mum could you please demonstrate to the lovely people at home? Yeah are we wanting it thin? Yeah thin slices please. So for the recipe in our first cookbook we don't actually cook with the spring onions or even use them as garnish because most takeaways that we've been in working with working in or have gone to actually very rarely use the spring onions. I'd say only about 30 percent which is still quite high but it's not the average. So we're going to be using spring onions today but for the most likely takeaway recipe you'll get that recipe is going to be in our first cookbook. So mum's just going to take the ends of the spring onion or scallions. Someone the other day said you're only saying them as spring onions to be pretentious. I'm just like that's what we call them. Yes in England we call it spring onion. I think in other part they call it scallions or green onions. Yeah batons yeah. Yeah batons please. And then we want to go and cut these a little bit in half so you get more. If you want to cut them into chunks, chunks, discs by all means please do. So now we're going to velvet some chicken. Most takeaways aren't going to be doing this are they mum? No. They're either going to buy pre-steamed or they're going to be poaching their chicken but I'd say 90 percent of them are going to be buying in pre-steamed nowadays. Velveting is something that was done a long time ago. The reason why it's not so highly used nowadays is because it's actually quite difficult to get it right. Like this will want to stick really heavily. We still velvet but most places won't because when it sticks that's your wok done until you can get it washed and re-seasoned. Yeah. But anyway. We're going to slice it. Yeah slice it up. We're going across the grain if you can. It's not a massive deal when you're dealing with chicken. It does help the texture but obviously because we're going to be velveting this the chemical processes we're going to be using will help tender the chicken much more than cutting with or against the grain. If you think it's a bit too big you can cut it into half yeah. You know what that onion is so strong it's making me cry. Take that away I'm going to wash my hand. Yes we just won't show it on camera. So we actually do plan to do a standalone velveting video where we'll show you how to velvet all the different kind of meats and the different types of velveting processes because there isn't just one. There's some where you wash it off. There's some that you don't wash it off. There's some that you pre-boil it and then velvet it. There's a whole load of different ways of doing it and we want to cover that in one video. So if that's something you would like to see make sure you comment below. I'm going to put in what's this mum? Salt. Yep. MSG. Garlic powder. Potato starch. And a pinch of bicarb. So this is what gives the meat its tenderness when it's cooked. It essentially stops the meat from going tough under high heat. Some light soil. Yeah. A splash of oil. Veg oil this. You can use and this is the one time I say you can use sesame oil is when you're velveting and marinating. It's just takeaways normally aren't because sesame oil doesn't go with everything on a Chinese takeaway menu. And I know people out there will argue with me saying it does but it's essentially for most people it doesn't. I know some of you it will do and that's absolutely fantastic but for most it doesn't and it does clash with a lot of I say a lot but many of the Chinese dishes. Anyway. The flavour. That's it the flavour. They use the chicken for the curry it's not going to be very good in the curry is it the sesame oil? No but I mean if you like that that's absolutely fine. We're just here to tell you what takeaways are doing and most of them aren't going to be putting sesame oil in as a base of anything. It's going to be garnished with later on if anything. So we're just going to mix this up. You want to mix it up well and we're going to leave this in the fridge for how long mum? About a half hour. Yeah or 20 minutes will do it. You can use it straight away it's just not as good overnight for best results and that's just for flavour. We've used very little bicarbonate so we don't have to wash it off. So we're going to put some veg oil into the wok. You need like I said quite you need quite a bit. I'm going to let this get hot. Now we're not going to be putting garlic in this because most takeaways aren't going to be putting garlic in it but if we did it would be fresh and it would be nearer the end because then the heat of the noodles will cut the garlic through while you're passing it over the base of the wok because you always use a high temperature or as high as you can get because if you put it in before with the vegetables it's going to have that bitter taste which a lot of people say my chow mein doesn't taste right because it has a slight bitter taste to it. It's probably because you put the garlic in too early and it's burnt. So we're going to put the chicken in. So if you're using a non-stick wok when that chicken goes in you have to let it sit straight away. Don't mess about pushing it about you want to let it sit and let a seal be created underneath otherwise it will stick and like I said before when it sticks everything's going to stick from that point on. You can see the chicken is so yeah so when you're using non-stick at home letting it sit isn't an issue you're only letting it sit to gain some colour on the outside but if you're using a non-stick wok it's good practice to let it sit for about 10-15 seconds each time before stirring. I'm going to add in onion yeah stir those off for about 10 seconds I'm going to add some salt and some MSG. Big up the MSG massive by the way and some people say that their MSG goes clumpy normally that's because you've added it directly to the oil and it's sort of melted into little crystals. You can get away with making those go away when you add the soy sauce later to redistribute them into the liquid but if you make sure that you pour it on your actual ingredients that won't be an issue. So we're just going to brown off the MSG a little bit now and you know when it's brown because it will smell like their takeaway when you were walking by it you know that just wonderful deep rich smell that makes you hungry that's the smell of the browning MSG. We're going to throw in our noodles and this is really important another reason why they stick is because people move them about too much you want to let them sit and get that nice char on the bottom. You should put a no disturb sign on. Well disturb every 20 seconds yeah and that's how you get a lot of that wok hay flavour a lot people say you need gas but that's just something that means they don't understand the chemical process that's happening it's just the intense heat that you need so it's much harder to replicate on an electric cooker that's like halogen but it's possible it just takes much longer it's about letting it sit letting that oil vaporise and letting the ingredients in the pan caramelise That rhymed in a rap that's pretty good yeah So I'm going to add a touch more salt and MSG and it is really just a little bit because we season little and often rather than lots at one time now we're going to add some light Yeah and we're going to cook this until that liquid has all vaporised off the soy sauce this process will also help you get that really deep rich caramelisation flavour that you get from a takeaway some people will say add sugar you can add sugar but if you're using a good quality soy sauce you don't need to so if you can see there that's what you're looking for that caramelisation of the noodles then we're going to add our bean sprouts and our spring onions last because we just want to get some heat through those yeah and the reason why we add the bean sprouts last mum is why it retains its colour and it doesn't go overcooked yeah so you get still get them nice and hot and they stay crunchy and vibrant and delicious for the eyeballs not that you eat with your eyes but you know and that's it we're gonna dish out now brilliant you don't need garlic ginger sometimes less is more don't get me wrong it's delicious like often I'll whack loads of different herbs and spices into a chow mein it just depends what I feel like on a day we always liken it to like say a bacon sandwich for example sometimes just butter is nice sometimes you want maybe whack a bacon or bacon a burger in that with some ketchup on I would definitely have chilli yeah really good and I can confirm that the new lucky boat noodles are in fact the same ones in the big boxes we get well I think one block per person more like it not unless you are really really tiny eater one block I don't think for two person yeah I think if I was gonna make this chow mein well maybe not unless you have other thing to go but it's just normally you just have this one isn't it yeah I would I would say if you're making a chow mein one block per person yeah if it's let's say soft noodles and you're gonna have a main dish I'd say two one block for two people yeah it's just that that says eight portions in the box but for me I'd say four portions but depends how big of an eater you are really the end of the day you have how many block you want exactly the chicken is really tasty chicken's always far superior though isn't it yeah look at that so there we have it if you'd like to support the page and channel make sure you hit that like button it's the best way to let the algorithm know that you like our content and it's absolutely free it costs you nothing also commenting helps a load as well so if you could do that that'd be fantastic if not no worries just stick around for the content because we love having you here anyway thank you very much happy cooking happy eating