I've ordered this dish a couple times from our favorite Vietnamese restaurant, but it is so HUGE that I can never even eat half of it by myself. My husband is too busy eating bun and spring rolls to help me devour my plate, so it's not very often that I get to enjoy this dish. I was super excited to discover Wandering Chopsticks recipe for this great dish and that I could make it at home. This one is definitely worth trying.
Recipe from Wandering Chopsticks
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Serves 4
1 lb beef sirloin steak, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp black pepper
6 baby bok choy, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 red pepper, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 carrot, peeled and julienned
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
2 bundles of fresh chow mein egg noodles
In a bowl combine the garlic, oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, cornstarch sugar and black pepper and stir until it is thoroughly mixed. Thinly slice the beef and add it to the bowl of marinade. Mix so that the meat is entirely covered with marinade, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge while you chop veggies and cook the egg noodles.
Chop all veggies and have them ready to go.
In a large frying pan turned to medium-high heat, add a few tbsp of oil. Separate the bundles of chow mein noodles. When the pan is nice and hot, add the noodles. Let get brown and crispy on one side and then flip and let the other side crisp up as well. This is supposed to hold together like a pancake, but mine totally didn't. It still tasted great, but just know that you aren't screwing anything up if yours doesn't hold together either. Just try to flip it once as best you can, keeping it in a "pancake" form. Once browned on both sides, slide onto a plate.
In the same hot frying pan, add a bit more oil as well as the sliced onions. Saute for a couple of minutes until they are softened, then add the meat and marinade to the pan. Keep sauteing until the meat gets browned and then add 1/2 cup of water to create the gravy. It will thicken up nicely as it cooks because of the cornstarch. Then add the rest of your veggies, reserving the bok choy until the end. Let cook until the gravy is thickened and the veggies are softened. In the last couple minutes of cooking time, add the bok choy.
Serve the beef stir-fry over the plate of crispy noodles.
Click here for printable version of Vietnamese Crispy Chow Mein with Beef Stir-Fry
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THE RESULTS?
Wonderful. Exactly like the restaurant's. Actually....probably better than the restaurant! Whatever our restaurant does to their noodles, the gravy makes the noodles in the center get super-soggified, so of course my favorite part is the outsides with all the crispy noodles. Maybe it was the brand of egg noodles I used or Wandering Chopsticks techniques, but the noodles in this recipe don't get super soggy in the middle...they just get nice and soft like a normal noodle. So you get to enjoy both worlds: crispy on the outside and nice and noodley on the inside.