Gluten Free Chow Mein noodles

Came across a dish in my new recipe book on napa cabbage. It was only after I made it that I realized that it was a chow mein dish! That made me so happy as I'm currently gluten, dairy, and egg free. My first attempt was a 5/10. But only because the recipe book was not detailed in its instructions and I didn't realize that I was making Chow Mein so I didn't know when to add the spices. It ended up being under salted. But I was so surprised at how good it actually looked. Almost like the recipe book!

Ingredients

• 1 package Chinese vermecelli noodles 冬粉
• 1/2 lb napa cabbage
  
• 3 oz sliced pork
  
• 1-2 wood ear or substitute mushroom
  
• 1 green onion
  
• garlic
  
• 1/4 large carrot
  
• salt, sugar, white pepper, wheat free soy sauce, rice wine
  

Instructions

1. Soak rice noodles for an hour or two till it's not hard anymore. To make it easier to stir fry, you can cut it up into shorter pieces.
   
2. Cut up green onions into 2 inch pieces & chop up 1 clove of garlic
   
3. Cut up the pork into slices, not big flat pieces.
   
4. Peel and cut napa cabbage into small pieces. Usually you cut it lengthwise in half then into 1 inch pieces.
   
5. Once oil is heated, add green onion and garlic.
   
6. Add pork till it's mostly done. You have to kind of judge it so that you don't overcook the pork by the time the rest of the ingredients are completely cooked.
   
7. Add carrots and wood ear and stir fry a bit.
   
8. Add napa cabbage, a bit of water, and some salt, cover a bit to help it soften. Don't add all the salt you need as you may need to add more to the noodles later.
   
9. When napa cabbage is slightly soft, add noodles.
   
10. Add 1 Tbsp soy sauce, a bit of white pepper (a couple shakess), a bit of sugar (~1 tsp), 1/2 Tbsp of rice wine. Stir fry everything together till it's mixed well. You may need to cover at this point to get the cabbage to soften.
    
11. Take it out when napa cabbage looks cooked. Usually this is when the white part becomes kind of clear.
    

Notes Did you know those rice noodles are sometimes made of mung beans? Sometimes they also have wheat in them so you have to read the ingredients list.

This is basically a chow mein recipe. So you can be fairly liberal with what you add to it. You just need your noodles and one main veggie, everything else is really just so the dish looks good. So just add enough for looks and a bit of taste.

When it comes to spices I'm always not too precise. It's hard unless you're weighing every one of your ingredients! For the soy sauce, the idea is to get the noodles to look a bit dark in color. Pretty much like how it looks in recipe books. You then add salt to make it salty enough. Add water when necessary to soften/cook the napa cabbage. The rice noodles will also soak it up, which means you may end up adding more than you think you need. But be very careful or else you'll make the noodles too soggy.