There are a couple of required ingredients that might be a deal breaker for you to not want to make this recipe. These two ingredients include: Oyster sauce & Lo Mein noodles. Chinese egg noodles work too. (Forget trying to make Lo-Mein with spaghetti)
Oyster sauce costs around $2.50
I know $2.50 is not a lot of money, but if this is the only recipe you're going to use oyster sauce for, it will seem a little extravagant to buy. Plus, if you hardly ever cook... it's most likely going to only get used once. It'll live its dying days in your refrigerator being looked at with bitterness by you for ever talking yourself into buying the waste of money and space it is now doomed to be.
Lo Mein & Chinese egg noodles usually cost under a dollar @ the grocery store.
Some available brands are: KA-ME, Rose Brand, Ty Ling
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| This is the brand of Chinese egg noodles I use |
If you can't find any lo mein friendly noodles @ your grocery store... Don't bother ordering them online. Just keep ordering your lo mein from your favorite Chinese restaurant.
Bottom line: Don't trouble yourself and go out of your way to obtain oyster sauce or lo mein noodles. It's really no big deal if you never make this recipe.
Capeesh?
Good. Moving on.
Lo mein can be made with freshly boiled noodles. However, the recipe does benefit from cooked & cooled noodles. Just use your noodle (brain) and figure out how you wanna go about these two options. I was in a pinch, so I didn't get a chance to cook and refrigerate my noodles overnight.
Bring a pot of water to a boil
Have a bowl ready to hold the cooked, drained, and rinsed noods.
Add your noodles to the boiling water
Give a stir to get them going
Boil for 2min.
Drain & Rinse to cool
Once drained, rinsed, and cooled
Add to a bowl
Douse with sesame oil
Distribute evenly to coat each strand
Mix in a separate bowl
2Tbl Oyster Sauce
2Tbl Soy Sauce
1teas cornstarch
a pinch of Salt & 1/4teas white pepper
(if you don't have white pepper, replace with the same amount of black pepper)
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| 1st tablespoon of oyster sauce |
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| 2nd tablespoon of oyster sauce |
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| 1st tablespoon of soy sauce |
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| 2nd tablespoon of soy sauce |
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| some grindings of pepper and a pinch of salt be cheensy on the addition of salt. the soy sauce is plenty salty. |
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| the one and only teaspoon of cornstarch |
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| whisk to combine |
With the sauce made & set aside
Measure out 1/4teas Red Pepper flakes (I highly suggest using only an 1/8tsp. Using 1/4tsp of red pepper flakes yields a pretty spicy lo mein. I like my food spicy. As the adage goes: Some like it hot.)
Chop
1/4cup Onion (I had part of a large shallot leftover)
1Tbl worth of garlic
2 Green Onion's white parts (saving the green parts for later)
Preheat a pan over medium high heat
w/3-4Tbl worth of vegetable or peanut oil
Have a spatula & a stir-fryer utensil of your choosing ready to wok & roll (sorry I couldn't help myself)
Once the oil is smoking
Add in the garlic, onion, green onion's white parts, and crushed red pepper flakes
Cook over med-high heat
Continually tossing and turning for 2min.
Dump in your noodles
Toss & turn to distribute evenly
Slice the reserved green onion's green parts on the diagnal
Add your sauce to the pan of noodles
Scrape the bowl of sauce clean
Also, have some water handy in case the sauce gets too thick & needs thinnning
Cook, toss, and turn for 3-4min. over med-high heat.
Add the diagonally sliced green onion's parts
Forego the to-go Chinese container & plate up
Nom. Nom. Nom. Nom. Nom. Nom. Nom. Nom.
