Sunday, July 13, 2008

Scallion Lo Mein

Scallion Lo Mein

From Bon Appetit (June 1992) courtesy of Fred Mueller.

Yield: 4 Servings

7 ounces Chinese egg noodles
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and minced
1 garlic clove, minced
16 scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces

Cook the noodles in a pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to the bite. Drain well. Rinse under cold water, and transfer to a bowl. Add the soy sauce and sesame oil and toss. (Can be made up to two hours ahead. Cover, let stand at room temperature.)

Heat vegetable oil in a wok or heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add the ginger and garlic; stir-fry 30 seconds. Add the onions; stir-fry two minutes. Add the noodles. Stir-fry to heat through and serve.

Personal Note: This is super good and we used to make it a lot but we tweaked it. It's been a long time since we did though, so I'm fuzzy on the details...it turned into something similar to that masterwork dish in Big Night with the crispy noodle top. I think somehow we put the noodles in a big, hot, oiled cast iron pan after doing the recipe as listed and somehow toasted it so there was this layer of crispy hot browned noodle. Then we'd cut into it like slices of cake or pie or paella; it would be crispy and coherently edged (a clean slice) on the top and bottom, with a softer, moister scraggly loose noodle-and-scallion innard tumbling out between the two crisp outer layers. It was really good; once one of us remembered it after all of these years we were all hopping on it. It's a very vivid memory of a very distinct dinnertime dish.

1 comment:

Dustin said...

this looks awesome, I cannot wait to try it on a lazy night. I am sure that you can add what ever veggies you have around the house to this!