Vegetable Chow Mein Recipe - Dish Ditty (2024)

FAQs

What is chow mein sauce made of? ›

The BEST Chow Mein Sauce:

Combine soy sauce, light sesame oil, oyster sauce, granulated sugar, cornstarch, and chicken broth to make the signature sweet and savory sauce that makes chow mein taste authentic.

Chow mein: thin, dried noodles that are parboiled for 5-6 minutes, and fried alongside veggies and meat. Lo mein: fat, chewy noodles that are boiled for a few minutes, then added to stir-fry after veggies and meat is cooked.

Chow mein vs chop suey are both popular Chinese dishes that are often confused with each other. Chow mein is a stir-fried noodle dish that typically includes vegetables and meat, while chop suey is a dish made up of meat, vegetables, and sometimes noodles that are cooked in a thick sauce.

Cantonese Chow Mein vs.

Americanized chow mein is heavier on the flavors, a bit saltier and will often use broccoli, chicken and carrots as a pairing. Chow mein found in China is much more delicate. Traditional Cantonese cooking is actually known for its soft and elegant flavor profiles.

The careful combination of ingredients like soy sauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce and sugar results in a chow mein sauce that has hints of both savory and sweet notes.

There are two main types of chow mein: steamed chow mein and crispy chow mein. To make steamed chow mein, chefs flash fry the egg noodles before tossing them with the rest of the ingredients and coating them in a light sauce. For crispy chow mein, chefs press the noodles flat while frying them.

Reason chow Mein should be dry. In my eyes, if you leave a little bit of soy in there, you do. You don't create the milnard reaction. and it gives you a lovely flavour, just like on a steak.

Steamed chow mein can have many different kinds of vegetables in the finished dish, most commonly including onions and celery but sometimes carrots, cabbage and mung bean sprouts as well. Crispy chow mein is usually topped with a thick brown sauce, while steamed chow mein is mixed with soy sauce before being served.

Ideally, you'd use thin, fresh chow mein, or fresh pan fried noodles. They're thinner than lo mein and contain less egg compared to wonton mein, resulting in a crispy, chewy texture when pan fried. With fresh noodles, you want to steam them before frying them.

What is Chicago style chow mein? ›

CHICAGO CHOW MEIN: Slices of vegetables in a dark sauce with mushrooms, water chestnuts, and pea pods.

Chow mein is a dish of stir-fried Chinese-style noodles that can be served with proteins, vegetables or gravy. Chow mein is the English derivative of the word chau meing and comes from the Taishan dialect of Chinese. Chau means stir-fried and meing means noodles.

Vermicelli. While “vermicelli” is a term used to describe thin noodles across various global cuisines, rice vermicelli specifically (also called rice sticks) is a favorite in East and Southeast Asian cooking.

Hong Kong-Style Pan-Fried (Chow Mein) Noodles

Sometimes also labeled as chow mein noodles, these look similar to thin wonton noodles. The main difference is that noodles labeled "Hong Kong" or "pan-fried noodles" are par-cooked in boiling water, which makes them ready to stir-fry.

There is no specific 'brown sauce' in Chinese cooking. There are many sauces used… some have a brown color. Oyster sauce is brown, as Sha Cha sauce (Chinese style Satay Sauce), and Hoisin Sauce, to name a couple of famous types.

Lo mein sauce

It's a simple umami filled mix of light and dark soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, sugar, and a hint of ginger. It's super easy to make a batch of lo mein sauce and keep it in the fridge so you can easily make lo mein whenever the craving hits.

Fish sauce is liquid, while oyster sauce is thicker. Fish sauce is fermented, while oyster sauce is caramelized. MasterClass says that when it comes down to taste, fish sauce is much saltier and deeply pungent and doesn't have the sweetness and subtleness that oyster sauce has.