[00:00] you actually don’t need a wok. But you’ll need&nbsp; this, secret weapon! (it’s a fan, a box fan). Today we’ll be showing you the technique of&nbsp; making ‘youmian’. This is the pre-cooked noodles&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:15] that’s the mainstay for street style fried&nbsp; noodles everywhere from Chengdu to Shenzhen. And that’s because this noodles they make&nbsp; stir frying noodles so easy and quick.&nbsp;&nbsp; They’re already cooked to begin with,&nbsp; they fry so nicely, they never stick,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:33] they love to take on flavor, so that stir&nbsp; fried noodle can come together in no time. And you can make them with literally any noodle&nbsp; you want. While in China what you’d usually see&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:45] is this kind of fresh alkaline noodle… you&nbsp; can actually just use dried. Or you could&nbsp;&nbsp; use Japanese style ramen noodles like what&nbsp; we opted for today, or you could even try&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:57] something like angel hair pasta – that actually&nbsp; works very well as well. Just simply boil your&nbsp;&nbsp; noodles until they’re al dente, then strain.
[01:10] tray and oil them: drizzle in a couple tbsps&nbsp; oil, coat it evenly, and place that in front&nbsp;&nbsp; of our secret weapon box fan – or you can also&nbsp; use a hand fan or a magazine if you’re skillful.
[01:24] As you’re oiling and fanning the noodles,&nbsp; jiggle them with a pair of chopsticks in&nbsp;&nbsp; front of the fan to let the steam escape, or use&nbsp; your hand if chopstick is a bit hard to control.&nbsp;
[01:36] Just keep it moving, after it cools&nbsp; down, about 5 minutes of doing this,&nbsp;&nbsp; set it aside, and these&nbsp; youmian are ready to be used. Now my suggestion is to make a larger&nbsp; batch here. Because these noodles,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:49] they keep really well in the fridge&nbsp; – we’ve gone up to eight days,&nbsp;&nbsp; so this can be great for meal prep,&nbsp; for a couple meals throughout the week. Or, if you have a good Chinese&nbsp; supermarket around you,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:02] sometimes you will be able to find this&nbsp; kind of noodles, on the package the&nbsp;&nbsp; characters are called “油面”, and it seems like&nbsp; in English it’s called ‘pre-cooked noodles’.&nbsp; Either way, once we have this&nbsp; ready, we can chow our mian.&nbsp;
[02:16] So you can really add anything you want into&nbsp; this fried noodle. This can be a proper one&nbsp;&nbsp; person meal, but for your add ins, you don’t&nbsp; want to push it over the weight of your noodles.
[02:28] So today in our recipe, we’re using the&nbsp; following add-ins: ham, onion, carrot,&nbsp;&nbsp; and baby bok choy, with everything cut into&nbsp; slivers to fit the shape of our noodle.
[02:40] Then besides those, because we’re aiming for&nbsp; a Chinese street food style fried noodle,&nbsp;&nbsp; we’re going to need a Chinese&nbsp; street food style seasonings. So… for the seasoning mix we’ll have 1/8 tsp&nbsp; each of salt, MSG, and five spice powder…&nbsp;
[02:54] Then, for that street food flavor,&nbsp; we can’t miss that 1/8 tsp each of&nbsp;&nbsp; chicken bouillon powder and the&nbsp; very important, cumin powder. And together with that we’ll also&nbsp; have a seasoning sauce – here we&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:08] have 1 tbsp light soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp dark soy,&nbsp;&nbsp; and 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce… mix well and keep&nbsp; those on the side until you’re ready to fry.
[03:20] So… wok up first, and don’t worry, we’ll show&nbsp; you how to switch to a skillet in just a second. But if using the wok, as always, first, longyau. Get your wok piping hot, shut off the heat,&nbsp;&nbsp; add one tbsp of oil, give it a quick swirl,&nbsp; then over a high flame add in our noodles.&nbsp;
[03:38] Spread our noodles out, move it around,&nbsp; and let it fry on one side for about 1&nbsp;&nbsp; minute to brown a bit… then flip, quickly&nbsp; brown the other side for another minute. Now add in the ham, quick mix, then in with&nbsp; the aromatics – here we have two big cloves&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:55] of minced garlic, and one spicy fresh chili. Give it another mix, then add in all of our&nbsp;&nbsp; vegetables. Mix well with your spatula&nbsp; and chopstick… or a tong if you prefer.
[04:08] swirl the sauce onto the noodle so that it&nbsp; doesn’t burn on the side of your very hot wok. Now fry everything together for about another&nbsp; two minutes or so, then heat off and out.&nbsp;
[04:24] Optionally place a fried egg on top, and now you&nbsp; have your Chinese style street food fried noodles. who’ll show you how to make this with nothing&nbsp; but a skillet over a simple induction stove.
[04:40] So, as we teased in the intro, this it can also&nbsp; totally work in a non-stick skillet too. Now I&nbsp;&nbsp; have the generally unpopular opinion that&nbsp; skillets and especially griddles they can&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:52] actually do a really reasonable job stir frying&nbsp; too. Like… just think about a Japanese Teppenyaki&nbsp;&nbsp; joint… and similar styles of stir-frying also&nbsp; totally exist on the street in China too.
[05:04] Now in a home setting skillets, they will have&nbsp; a couple of downsides – and the biggest one I&nbsp;&nbsp; think is splatter. Like sometimes if you’re&nbsp; working in a skillet on a really oil heavy&nbsp;&nbsp; recipe your kitchen can really end up turning&nbsp; into a disaster zone? And then you kinda gotta&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:19] cosplay Dexter after dinner. But for this&nbsp; kind of recipe – stuff like fried noodles,&nbsp;&nbsp; fried rice, that kind of thing – they really&nbsp; don’t take all that much oil, like we were just&nbsp;&nbsp; working off of one tablespoon, so that’s not&nbsp; gunna be a really big problem with this one.
[05:34] With that said though, I do still have&nbsp; a couple of other suggestions. First,&nbsp;&nbsp; because skillets they do have a little less room&nbsp; to maneuver than a big wok, something that you can&nbsp;&nbsp; do is take about half of your dark soy sauce&nbsp; and you can mix it with the noodles at first.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:51] This was a technique I picked up from Thai Pad&nbsp; See Ew making, and it also seems to work pretty&nbsp;&nbsp; well here. And second, if you’re working with a&nbsp; non-stick skillet like I was today – definitely&nbsp;&nbsp; don’t do that whole longyau process like we just&nbsp; did. Instead, add the oil to a cool pan, turn the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:10] heat to high and then immediately, immediately&nbsp; go in with the noodles and spread them out. And that’s because non-stick it famously degrades&nbsp; at high temperatures, but you’re generally still&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:23] okay over a high flame so long as you have enough&nbsp; stuff inside of it. If you’re really worried,&nbsp;&nbsp; one of these cool little temp guns they can help&nbsp; make 100% sure you’re on the safe side of 260,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:36] or you could knock the heat back a little&nbsp; bit, but whatever you do not heat this pan&nbsp;&nbsp; up empty because it can really go from&nbsp; zero to midnight in an absolute flash. So for me, on this induction, it takes about&nbsp; one minute for the surface to dry up a bit, then&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:51] I’ll flip, then I’ll go for another 30 seconds.&nbsp; Then we’ll do the ham, mix another 30 seconds,&nbsp;&nbsp; then in with the aromatics and give it a quick&nbsp; mix. Vegetables in, and then fry that all together&nbsp;&nbsp; for another minute, or until the vegetables&nbsp; wilt a touch… then we’ll take the skillet&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:06] off the flame and toss in the seasoning, both the&nbsp; dry and the liquid. Quick mix, back on the flame,&nbsp;&nbsp; and fair warning that mixing this in a skillet can&nbsp; be a touch of a pain, like here I’m trying to mix&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:20] this with chopsticks and my rice cooker spoon&nbsp; because we don’t have any not-metal wok chuan,&nbsp;&nbsp; it’s awkward but does the job… a couple flips&nbsp; can also help, and once that seasoning’s all&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:34] good and mixed in, about a half a minute…&nbsp; out. Non-stick skillet fried noodles, done. So yeah! Skillet frying… I would still suggest a&nbsp; round bottomed wok if you have the stove set-up&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:48] for it, it has all the benefits of a skillet and&nbsp; a pot with none of the splatter… or at least I&nbsp;&nbsp; guess a lot less of the splatter… but we also&nbsp; don’t really sautee or stir fry in a skillet&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:02] all that much personally, so if you have any tips&nbsp; on splatter avoidance definitely let us know down&nbsp;&nbsp; in the comments because it would be nice if our&nbsp; recipes could be a bit more accessible to the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:14] wok-less too. But yeah. Huge, huge thank you&nbsp; to everyone that’s supporting us on Patreon…&nbsp;&nbsp; we could not make these videos without you –&nbsp; and subscribe for more Chinese cooking videos.