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.

Instant noodle

Testing out this multi user blog.

Instant noodle

1 - instant noodle pack

1 - bean sprout pack

1 - egg

1 - hot bamboo sprouts

1 - salted fermented bean curd

1.25 - bowl of water

directions

1. boil water
2. add noodle to water, use seasoning pack as desired.
3. add egg
4. add bean spout
5. pour noodle from pot into a bowl
6. add bamboo sprouts on side
7. enjoy with 1 square fermented bean curd

Chow mein - 炒麵

So many ways to make chow mein. The best thing about homemade ones is that you get to add lots of ingredients so that it's not heavy on the noodle or overly greasy like in restaurants.

This should make enough for 2 people over 2-3 meals.

Ingredients
some fried onions (chinese kind, optional)
3-4 large shitake mushrooms
chinese noodles (alternative: sphaghetti)
1 large carrots or 2 medium carrots
1 medium size napa cabbage or cabbage
bbq pork (alternative: ham, stir-fry pork)
low sodium soy sauce
black pepper

Instructions

1. Soak your mushrooms in hot water. Cut them into thin strips. Save your mushroom water!
2. In the meantime, cook your noodles. You want about 2 fistful of noodles. Add some oil to the noodles so they don't stick. When they're done, pour them out and rinse the noodles in cold water.
3. Cut up your carrots into thin strips
4. Cut up your cabbage. You can either do medium chunks or do medium strips too.
5. 2-3tbs of oil in wok. Wait till it's hot.
6. Put in your mushrooms and onions and stirfry. You want them to soak up the oil and omit some good smells.
7. When they're slightly brown, put in the carrots and stirfry. You can put in some mushroom water as you cook the carrots.
8. Put in the cabbage when the carrots are 75% done. Stirfry. You'll need to add some more mushroom water.
9. Cover wok till they're mostly done.
10. Add a bit of salt. Not too much because you'll add soysauce later too.
11. When the food mostly cooked, add the noodles and bbq pork. Mix them together. Add the soy sauce now and the black pepper. Mix will and serve.
    

Notes

1. You want noodles that are wide enough to be able to soak up the soysauce and mushroom juice.
2. It really doesn't matter how much of the ingredients you put in. Too much vegies? Add more noodles. Too much noodles AND vegies? cook them in 2 batches. :D
3. You want to make sure that most of the water you put in is evaporated when you put in the noodles. Since the noodles will soak up any juice, you don't want to have too much water, or else the noodles become really sticky and limpy.
4. Add enough soy sauce to make the noodles slightly brown in color. That's usually enough soy sauce for taste too. If it's the right color, but still not salty enough, add some salt.
5. Alternatively, you can add ham, or cook your own pork. For ham, add it in when your vegies are done cooking, before noodles. For pork, cut it into thin strips and add it in after the mushroom. Add enough just to make it look pretty.
6. To chop carrots, cut them in diagonals so you get longer slices. Then cut them into thin strips. Not super super thin, just thin enough so that it doesn't taste like you're biting into a chunky carrot when you eat it.