How to Cook Beef Chow Fun ("Dry" style - Deliciously chewy noodles and tender beef!) 乾炒牛河

Oh my goodness. Look at that nice dark color. It looks so good. And this is ready to plate. Wow. Hi everybody, it's Bill from the Walks of Life. And today we're going to make for you beef chow fun, better known in Chinese circles as guan chao ngao ho, a dry chow fun noodles with beef. And that's mostly what you're going to see at dim sum restaurants and Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. You might be asked by the waiter, wet or dry? I remember Caitlyn was asked that and she's like, uh, wet? And then Sarah's like, no, dry. I want it dry. So dry has no sauce at all. Wet is saucy. Now Sarah is insistent about dry is the way to go. It's the only way to eat it because it has a lot of wok hei. You get that seared noodle. It's the most iconic one. That's really the one that first came out and then the wet came a little bit later. But today I'm going to make the dried version, the guan chao ngao ho. You make the choice and you choose the recipe. We have both on the blog. All right, so here's a quick rundown on the ingredients because it's super simple. You're going to get a couple of slices of fresh ginger. You get four scallions. A lot of scallions are good. You got beef here. You can use flank steak or you can use another cut. We have recommendations on other cuts that you could possibly use in our post on how to velvet beef and how to select beef for stir fry. Bean sprouts, put them in the refrigerator, soaked in cold water and they'll actually last longer. And, of course, the rice noodles. The sauce is actually really simple. It's just soy sauce, dark soy sauce, which is a must for good color. Add a little bit of ground pepper, a little sesame oil, and Shaoxing wine. And in Chinese cooking, we always use white pepper. So on the rice noodle ratio, whatever you use and you want the equivalent dried version, make it half. So in our case, our recipe calls for 12 ounces of fresh noodles. Soak six ounces of dried noodles and you'll be all good. So now we're ready to prepare the beef. In this case today, we actually have a nice cut of skirt steak. It's a little bit tougher than flank steak, but it has a beefier flavor. So the first thing you want to do is you could very easily see the grains on here and you want to cut across the grain. I'm going to first of all, I'm going to cut these into the width that I want and I'm cutting with the grain because the grains go this way. And now I'm going to cut this across the grain and that's going to be tenderizing them because you don't have these long stringy pieces. This is a very thin piece. So what you do to get a better piece is you cut it at a little bit of an angle. See how this angle really makes a nice surface area. Another tip, if you put this in the freezer and let it get slightly frozen, it won't slide around like what I'm dealing with now. Okay, another tip or trick is that you do have this membrane. You can cut it off, but I'm not going to worry too much about that. Make it an angle like this, but if you make an angle like this also, so you got two angles, you also lengthen the narrow piece. So these are the pieces where I cut at a straight angle. Both of these pieces are very narrow and very thin. It's almost like if I was julienning them. But before, I was cutting them at an angle. You get this difference here, right here. And you see you get a nice broad piece versus this thin piece. So when we make this dish, you have to velvet the beef. So we have a separate YouTube video that shows you complete steps on velveting beef using the shortcut method and using the beef washing method. And we also have a complete post with all the directions in detail on that. We'll leave that link in the description. Today, we're going to use the shortcut method. I'm going to use some baking soda, about a quarter teaspoon. I'm going to use two tablespoons of water. That's one. Pour it right over that baking soda. And I'm just going to massage this water, baking soda, into the beef. Next, we're going to marinate. It's really important, actually, to get this beef seasoned properly because the flavor of the beef has to stand alone, if you will. So we put two teaspoons of regular soy sauce. And we're going to put two teaspoons of oyster sauce because it does have a good flavor into it, umami. But if you can't find it, you could just use your soy sauce. And I add a little bit of Shaoxing wine, which also, by the way, has salt in it. Two teaspoons of that. And look at this. I'm adding more liquid to this, which means that it's going to absorb even more liquid. And that helps in the tenderization process. Since I've dirtied this teaspoon, I'm just going to use this to mix it. That's why I like using my hands as well, because it's a lot easier. But I just washed them. Smells really good. It's all a combination. The baking soda, working in conjunction with all these seasonings and the wine, really helps a lot. Now, we're going to leave this here, and we're going to let it set for at least 30 minutes. All right, next, we're going to mix up our sauce because everything happens really quickly at the wok, and you want to have your sauce ready. So I'm going to put two tablespoons of regular soy sauce. Then I'm going to put two teaspoons of dark soy sauce. And this is key to not only adding flavor, but it really helps you add color to this dish, and it really darkens it up really nicely. We're going to add a quarter teaspoon sugar, about an eighth of a teaspoon or just a little shake of white pepper, half teaspoon of sesame oil, and we'll just give it a little stir so the sugar doesn't settle at the bottom, and your sauce is ready. All right, next, we're going to cut our scallions, about four scallions. The more the merrier. The scallions are really good. These are all clean. We're going to cut off the ends. These little tiny ends, we usually put them in the ground and plant them in the spring, and then they grow back. It's a trick where I crush them a little bit to release flavor, but what I'll do is I'll just cut these at an angle. And these are about one to two inches wide. And then three thin slices of ginger. Okay, next we're going to drain out our bean sprouts. These are mung bean sprouts. And the difference is that the mung bean sprouts don't have the big beans in them. The shells of these are small, and they're slightly green. The soybean sprouts are going to have bigger beans, and they're going to be yellow, and they're going to be hard. You don't want those for this dish. Let's strain them here. And even if you have them out of the package, it's not a bad idea to actually soak them in a little bit of water and even hydrate them even more. All right, I was looking at the beef, and I said, Hey, I forgot the cornstarch. Let's put some cornstarch in here now. One thing people ask me is like, Hey, do you put the cornstarch in after you marinate it? What do you do? It's like, yeah. No, there's a lot of people say like, Hey, do I marinate and then put the cornstarch at the end like we're doing here because we forgot. And I said, You could do either, actually. I actually forgot it because what I usually do is I put it right in there. But if you actually want to do this and have it marinate in there, you could do that as well. Now it looks right. So now remember, we added 2 tablespoons of water, and we added Shaoxing wine. We added soy sauces and oyster sauce. And look, everything absorbed. So we've got a good, healthy 4 tablespoons of liquid in here that this beef has absorbed. That's what makes it really tender and really tasty. So a word about noodles. You have a lot of choices. You can go to the Chinese supermarket, and some of them have fresh noodles that might be delivered that day. But some of them might have frozen, refrigerated, vacuum packed. But if you want the best results, believe it or not, it's the dried noodles. They're easy to soak. You just soak these overnight. The next morning, you drain them, and you're done. Some of these noodles do have to be cut because they're really super long, probably 8 to 10 inches or something like that, for ease of mixing and also for eating. At first, I didn't. I said, hey, you got to have fresh. But most people can't find those across the whole U.S., mostly on the coast where the Chinatowns are. Also, fresh rice noodles, they do go bad quite quickly. So these dried rice noodles keep well. They're just in your cupboard. You throw them in the night before. If you're in a pinch, you could use hot water and soak them for, let's say, an hour or two. Follow the directions on the package. Easiest method, throw them like this, leave them overnight. They get fully hydrated, and they work great. Now we're going to drain our noodles right before we're ready to go to the walk because we want to keep these hydrated. And I want you to see the consistency of these noodles. These noodles aren't soft and floppy. They're hydrated, but they're not yet cooked. That's right. And once these cook up, they're going to get soft and chewy. Let's go to the walk. All right, so we're at the walk. We've got all our ingredients right in reach. And what I did also was I did pour some hot water. When I pour my sauce in, I'm going to use a little bit of water to rinse it out, and it gives a little bit of moisture into that hot wok. You have two tools that you usually use. So this is a wok spatula, and this is a hawk in Cantonese, but it's basically a big spoon. The professional chefs that use these smaller woks, they only use this. And they use this motion to toss it around. That's great. You can do that at home on the stove. But if you can't, you could use the scooping motion with this wok like this. The nice thing about having this is you can sort of slide it around, and it should be nonstick. Also, for those of you who don't have a wok like this, and maybe you just have a wok that has two handles on it, and you can't lift it up, you can use just one wok spatula to lift it up, or a lot of times both of these. Now, in Cantonese cooking, when you got the big wok in the old days, there's not that many people. Maybe in Chinatown they do this a lot. They use one in one hand, one in the other. And the way they cook it is move the food around like that. And then when they plate it, they plate it on here and put it on the plate, plate it on here. Just a reference for you at home. Now, for those of you also who say, well, I don't have any wok, so I can't cook this dish, wrong. Absolutely not. You could use a pan. A nonstick pan, probably better for the novice. There's less chance of sticking. And then you could just use any wooden spatula. So it's good to separate the whites and the greens in there because you want to put the white portions of the scallion in with ginger so that when you put the noodles in, that infuses all that flavor together. You want to put enough oil in the wok. What you could do is put a little bit of oil in the wok. It's nice and hot and smoky. And then put the rest of the oil in the wok. Let her go. Screaming hot. Spread the beef out and just let it fry for a little bit. Fry it on the other side. Make sure there is one layer deep so you get a good sear on all the beef. That smells good. All right. Look at that. That is beautiful. Look how plump and juicy that beef is. Got a nice little sear here and there. I'm going to put another tablespoon of oil. Now throw the whites of the scallions and your ginger. Get that infused. And then I'm not going to waste any time. We're going to put that in. The noodles. Woo-hoo. You're thinking, you're panicking. You're like, oh, these are going to burn. Don't worry about it. The searing of these noodles is normal. And you want them actually to get a sear. You see that? You see how that noodle has a nice sear on it? That's what you want. And they're softening. And they're softening up. Now is the time where you want to put this liquid in there. And you want to add the beef right away. Wow. Look at that nice dark color. That looks so good. Now this, we've got a little bit of sugar. Got a little bit of stuff in here. I'm just going to add a little bit of this and zhuzh it around. And also the flavor. I want to make sure that all the sugar is in there. Look at this. Now I'm not really in a rush here. This is screaming hot. But I'm just going to let this sear because part of the sear that you get and the wok hay is going to be caused right here. The sides of the wok are super heated. I see you get a little sticking. You can scrape it off. Now is the time to add this. I'm going to add this back in also. And I'm going to add the scallions. So at this point, I'm going to show you that if you're using your wok spatula, you're going to scoop motion like this. But if you have the wok like this, you can just push and toss. Push and toss. And this is ready to plate. Nice and careful. Wow. And that is beef chaofan or guanchao naohuo at home. Now another tip is that if you want to really try to get wok hay, you can use less. Make a half an order and experiment. This is a nice plate of noodles here. Let's go give it a taste. Okay. Taste test on this beef chaofan. Just smells amazing. Has wok hay. Oh boy. Sorry. I took a big bite. Oh. Those scallions, the flavor of the beef. If you're worried about your sodium, you can reduce the seasoning. But this is perfect. Another thing that we like to do is put chili oil on top. Adds a little zing to it. Really good. Remember, this was dried noodles sitting in the cupboard for a few weeks now, if not months. They're so much easier to work with than the fresh kind. Now, I'm not going to lie. The fresh noodles taste a lot better. If you can get them, use them. But if you can't, you're not missing that much with these. The key is if you can get them from a local Chinatown the morning that they were made and then make the dish the same day. That's very true. That's the key. That's very true. Because if you're going to get them from the freezer section that are vacuum packed, or if you get fresh noodles that were previously frozen, it's just not going to be the same. If you don't have those options and you can't get the absolutely fresh noodles, just use the dry. So if you enjoyed this video and you want to make this beef chow fun at home, please give us a like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. And check out our website on thewalksoflife.com. See you, folks. The guan chao ngao he, guan means dry in Chinese. So it's wet. There's no sauce in it. Is there sauce? No, you just misspoke. Oh, okay. So it's wet. No, it's dry. Okay. Wait, what's recording? No! It's a bumble. Every bumble. Every video we have a bumble. Ah! What's recording?