WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: We're making beef chow fun!
Beef chow fun! Is there better take-out? (Or take-away?) It's always been one of our favorites. But we live in rural New England . . . so we have to make our own.
We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. We've written three dozen cookbooks and been contributing editors and/or columnists at a host of magazines (back in the day). We're working on our 37th cookbook right now! But in this episode, we're making that chow fun, one of our go-to dinners.
Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:
[00:44] Our one-minute cooking tip: Start cooking thin strips of bacon (or streaky bacon) in a cold skillet (or "pan," as Bruce would say).
[02:33] We're making beef chow fun at home.
Here's the recipe: soak 10 ounces or 285 grams of wide dry rice noodles in a bowl of water overnight (or at least 12 hours--yep, that long).
Slice an 8-ounce or 225-gram beef flank steak into thin strips (angle your knife and cut thin strips sort of on the diagonal). Put these strips in a bowl and add 1 teaspoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon Shaoxing (a rice wine for cooking) or dry sherry, 1 teaspoon vegetable oil, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch (or cornflour). Mix well and set aside for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, whisk together the sauce in a small bowl: 2 tablespoons (30 ml) standard soy sauce, 2 tablespoons (30 ml) Shaoxing (as above), 1 tablespoon (15 ml) dark soy sauce, 1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil, and 1/2 teaspoon granulated white or caster sugar.
Drain the noodles in a colander set in the sink.
Set a wok over high heat until smoking. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons (23 ml) refined vegatable or peanut oil. Add the beef strips and any juice in the bowl. Spread out the slices all across the wok (even up the sides) to brown on one side.
Char for about 1 minute, then add 2 tablespoons (26 grams) julienned or minced fresh peeled ginger and 4 medium scallions, trimmed and cut into 2-inch (5-centimeter) segments.
Stir-fry for 1 minute, gathering all the beef strips together as you do. Spread the drained noodles over the top. Then pour the sauce all around the inner edge of the wok (so it runs down). Stir-fry gently until everything is coated (without breaking up the noodles).
Add 6 ounces (170 grams) of bean sprouts and a big pinch of ground white pepper. Serve it up!
[15:10] What’s making us happy in food this week: rhubarb pickles (look for a video on how to make these on TikTok and Istagram) and bread-and-butter pickles (for our recipe, see our YouTube channel: COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK).
Transcript
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Speaker:And
Speaker:I'm Mark Scarbrough.
Speaker:And together with Bruce, we have written three dozen, now are working
Speaker:on the editorial of the 37th cookbook.
Speaker:We have been contributing editors at magazines like Cooking Light and Eating
Speaker:Well back in the day when they existed.
Speaker:We've written features for Wine Spectator, and we were the longest
Speaker:serving columnists on WeightWatchers.
Speaker:com once upon a time in this episode of Our Family.
Speaker:food and cooking podcasts.
Speaker:We've got a one minute cooking tip.
Speaker:We're going to be making a recipe.
Speaker:We're going to make beef chow fun that take out favorite.
Speaker:We're going to actually make it and show you how, and we'll tell you what's
Speaker:making us happy in food this week.
Speaker:So let's get started.
Speaker:Our one minute cooking tip.
Speaker:Most of the time when you cook meat, you let your pan heat till it's smoking hot.
Speaker:Not with bacon, put bacon in a cold pan, skillet.
Speaker:Whatever.
Speaker:And turn the heat on medium.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And the low rise in temperature in the metal will allow the fat to begin
Speaker:to render out of the bacon, so it cooks without browning too quickly,
Speaker:and you get a very even crispness and brownness across each piece of bacon.
Speaker:It's not a fast process.
Speaker:Even though bacon's really thin, it's gonna take you 10 to 15 minutes.
Speaker:Yeah, it takes a while.
Speaker:Bacon in a cold pan.
Speaker:Yeah, bacon in a cold pan.
Speaker:And you can get it as crunchy as you want at this point.
Speaker:Um, I had a great aunt that used to make it so that you could
Speaker:nail nails in with the bacon.
Speaker:I mean, she cooked it until it was dead.
Speaker:But you can get it however crunchy you want this way.
Speaker:Or if you're one of those people that likes undercooked bacon.
Speaker:I like floppy bacon.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:Um, then you can take it off when you need to.
Speaker:Um, good luck.
Speaker:Good luck with the trichinosis.
Speaker:Okay, before we get up to the next segment of Cooking with Bruce and Mark, it's
Speaker:nice that we brought your grandmother.
Speaker:Ian, I don't think people know that your grandmother is
Speaker:associated with trichinosis.
Speaker:I knew a lady once.
Speaker:My grandmother kept kosher, and so every time I would tell her about the pork
Speaker:we ate in our house, because we did not keep kosher in our house, she was like,
Speaker:I knew a lady once who got trichinosis.
Speaker:Every time we talk about trichinosis, we have to talk about his grandmother.
Speaker:It's a thing with us.
Speaker:Before we get to the next segment of the podcast, let me say that it
Speaker:would be great if you could rate and subscribe to this podcast.
Speaker:If you can subscribe, that would be terrific.
Speaker:You won't miss an episode then in whatever provider you're
Speaker:finding us on whatever platform.
Speaker:And if you can rate it and even write a review, that would be terrific.
Speaker:We thank you very much for that because we're unsupported and it is a way that
Speaker:you can help us support the podcast.
Speaker:Thanks for doing that.
Speaker:Okay, now we're going to go crazy and we're going to make that takeout favorite
Speaker:beef chow Let me start and say, when I moved to New York, I moved in with
Speaker:Bruce from Texas, and I didn't know what beef chow fun, I know, I know, I
Speaker:can't help it, I knew what a taco was.
Speaker:I didn't know what beef chow fun was, I had no idea, and I
Speaker:became absolutely addicted to it.
Speaker:Oh, those stir fried rice noodles, it's all about the rice noodles.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:And rice noodles.
Speaker:Look, there's a couple of ways you could deal with rice noodles.
Speaker:So you either go down to Chinatown and buy them from the lady standing on the corner.
Speaker:Oh, right.
Speaker:That's a three hour drive, which is what I used to do when we lived in New York.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And those are absolutely the best noodles to use fresh ones.
Speaker:You can make your own fresh rice noodles, but it's a lot of work and here's
Speaker:the problem with using dried ones.
Speaker:They come out really delicious in the thing, but they're never wide enough.
Speaker:When you buy fresh ones, they're like an inch, an inch and a half wide.
Speaker:The widest you're going to get are maybe three quarters of an inch, but
Speaker:that's what you're going to go for.
Speaker:You're going to look for wide, wide rice noodles.
Speaker:Yeah, it's not going to be as it is in a Chinese restaurant.
Speaker:They're not going to be that wide, but do the best you can.
Speaker:Buy the wide, dry rice noodles.
Speaker:You want about 10 ounces or 285 grams of these dried noodles.
Speaker:Rice noodles and the package will tell you to soak them in some warm
Speaker:water for like 30 minutes or 40 minutes before you do it, and a lot of
Speaker:recipes will tell you that right now.
Speaker:I'm gonna tell you differently.
Speaker:Soak them in cold water all day.
Speaker:The longer you soak them, the more the texture will begin to
Speaker:resemble fresh rice noodles.
Speaker:Yeah, we've learned this recently, that you take the rice noodles and you
Speaker:just soak them even up to overnight.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:You just keep them in cold water for a really long time.
Speaker:And they will rehydrate and be very close to what you'll get in a restaurant.
Speaker:Okay, so what you need here is you need to get yourself a flank of pork.
Speaker:steak, and we're talking about a half a pound or 225 grams of flank steak.
Speaker:And you'll notice it that flank steak is not a tender cut of steak.
Speaker:It's not.
Speaker:But the way that Chinese cuisine deals with that is that the meat
Speaker:is very thinly sliced on an angle.
Speaker:So you can get big, wide, flat pieces, and then You're going to marinate them.
Speaker:So explain that because I, this is a podcast and we don't have visuals.
Speaker:So explain how it is that you caught this flank steak.
Speaker:If you have ever made a flank steak and barbecued it or grilled it and sliced
Speaker:it, you've probably sliced it this way.
Speaker:You've carved it on an angle that you hold your carving knife at
Speaker:about a 45 degree angle to the meat.
Speaker:And you make very thin slices almost the same way you would slice
Speaker:smoked salmon off a side of salmon.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Now I want to tell you that.
Speaker:Uh, although I'm a writer in this career, I'm not a trained chef, and before I met
Speaker:you, I sliced flank steak straight down.
Speaker:I knew to slice it thin, but I didn't know to position my blade at a 45 degree angle.
Speaker:So I don't think a lot of people know that.
Speaker:I could be wrong, but I don't think a lot of people know get wider pieces,
Speaker:because of course, if you slice it straight down, especially when it's raw,
Speaker:you're going to have very narrow pieces.
Speaker:If you angle your knife, you're going to get wider pieces.
Speaker:Other part of tenderizing it.
Speaker:is baking soda.
Speaker:Okay, so now we're gonna actually coat this steak in the bowl.
Speaker:We've got a quarter teaspoon of baking soda, a quarter teaspoon of cornstarch,
Speaker:a teaspoon of soy sauce, a teaspoon of Shaoxing or rice wine, unsweetened rice
Speaker:wine, and a teaspoon of vegetable oil.
Speaker:So a teaspoon of all of those with a quarter teaspoon baking soda,
Speaker:a quarter teaspoon of cornstarch.
Speaker:Uh, cornstarch, and I've just dumped it all in the bowl,
Speaker:and now I'm stirring it up.
Speaker:And we're going to let this sit for about 30 minutes so that the
Speaker:baking soda can do its thing and start to tenderize this meat.
Speaker:But before we go and let this sit, we are also going to mix up our cornstarch.
Speaker:In quotes, stir fry sauce that we're putting together, and in a little
Speaker:bowl, I am mixing together yet another two tablespoons of Shaoxing wine.
Speaker:Or, if you don't have Shaoxing, you can use dry sherry, or in a real pinch,
Speaker:you can use unsweetened apple juice.
Speaker:You can.
Speaker:And I have one, tablespoon of dark soy sauce, and that is not
Speaker:the same as regular soy sauce, which looks like it's dark, right?
Speaker:But this is labeled dark soy.
Speaker:It's thicker.
Speaker:It's a little saltier.
Speaker:It has caramel color added to it, so it actually has a slightly sweeter
Speaker:taste, but especially what it does is it adds color to your dish.
Speaker:Then we're going to add two tablespoons of regular soy,
Speaker:half a teaspoon of sesame oil.
Speaker:That's toasted sesame oil.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Just as the writer.
Speaker:I have to be accurate all the time.
Speaker:And a quarter teaspoon of sugar, and I'm going to mix that up.
Speaker:That's granulated white sugar or caster sugar.
Speaker:The writer is just insistent that these things be right.
Speaker:So you have to whisk this together until that sugar dissolves and
Speaker:until everything's mixed together.
Speaker:mix together.
Speaker:Of course, the soy sauce and the oil will separate over time, but you know,
Speaker:you'll whisk it again before you use it.
Speaker:But right now, just get that sugar to dissolve.
Speaker:We're going to go away and let this marinate and sit for 30 minutes and
Speaker:come back and cook up our beef jowl fun.
Speaker:So we've got a wok and we've set it up.
Speaker:over high heat on the stove.
Speaker:And I should tell you that we're using what kind of wall?
Speaker:I have a black steel carbon steel walk.
Speaker:Yes, exactly.
Speaker:If you have a non stick walk, you cannot heat it up this high.
Speaker:You will ruin the coating on it.
Speaker:So I would advise you to get the authentic black carbonized
Speaker:steel walk, the whole thing.
Speaker:There's a whole method of taking care of it.
Speaker:You'll find out about it.
Speaker:If you buy one, usually they come with instructions.
Speaker:They become essentially slippery, nonstick surfaces.
Speaker:So this has been sitting over a high heat for a while.
Speaker:It's smoking.
Speaker:That's why you hear the.
Speaker:sound of the vent over the stove on, otherwise you will be hearing
Speaker:the sound of our smoke alarm.
Speaker:So before you add the oil, let me say that we're just going to
Speaker:use a very special kind of oil.
Speaker:It's Kaizhi Yu, a toasted canola oil.
Speaker:It gives a very distinctive taste to Chinese stir fries, and I'm putting that
Speaker:in and wow, the smoke goes right up.
Speaker:And if you're going to use any other oil, just remember a refined vegetable oil
Speaker:or refined seed oil is what you want.
Speaker:So now the beef goes in and it goes in a really special way.
Speaker:I'm spreading these Slices out as evenly as possible because
Speaker:I want all that surface area.
Speaker:I created by slicing it on the sides, the bottom and the sides, and I'm
Speaker:not touching them for a minute.
Speaker:I really want to sear it.
Speaker:So let me go back to that oil while the sear for a second and remind you that if
Speaker:you want to get it, you can go online.
Speaker:I get mine from the mall on market.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:Shout out to them.
Speaker:I bought mine from them.
Speaker:We're not sponsored by them, but shout out.
Speaker:They got really great stuff.
Speaker:And now.
Speaker:The meat is starting to turn brown on one side, so I will dump in
Speaker:two tablespoons of julienne ginger and start stirring this around.
Speaker:And four scallions, four medium scallions that have been trimmed of their waggly
Speaker:roots, and then cut into two inch pieces, green and white parts, the whole thing.
Speaker:And again, this is why we encourage you not to use a nonstick pan.
Speaker:Well, because Bruce is using a walk shovel that allows him to move
Speaker:things around, a walk in a huge way.
Speaker:It would scratch up a non stick coating.
Speaker:And this is going to take about a minute for this to get right.
Speaker:You will, you cannot see me do this, but I actually have a blowtorch.
Speaker:A kitchen blowtorch, not a welder's blowtorch, a kitchen blowtorch.
Speaker:And I am hitting the top of this mean stuff with my blowtorch because I don't
Speaker:have enough BTUs coming from the bottom of my wok to create enough wok hay.
Speaker:Which is that flame shooting over the edge of the wok.
Speaker:Right, so I created this way with a blowtorch on the top.
Speaker:It can be dangerous, so I'm not suggesting you all do that, but it is something
Speaker:that I do and I'm comfortable with.
Speaker:So, we're gonna spread the noodles out in an even layer over the meat.
Speaker:And remember that sauce we made with Shaoxing and dark soy and all that?
Speaker:Okay, we're gonna pour it around the exterior of the wok.
Speaker:Now scrape everything out, but now be careful.
Speaker:Those noodles are very fragile.
Speaker:I don't want them to break.
Speaker:So, I'm basically shaking the wok to toss them more than I'm scraping.
Speaker:And they're coming together so beautifully.
Speaker:And before it's done, we are going to put in six ounces of bean sprouts
Speaker:and a large pinch of white pepper.
Speaker:Now I'm going to give these one final stir.
Speaker:And the dish is done.
Speaker:Get it off the heat.
Speaker:At this point, now things will start to stick.
Speaker:So get it immediately off the heat.
Speaker:The thing about stir frying I think that we all know is that it's
Speaker:labor intensive up until doing it.
Speaker:Because you gotta mix everything, get everything prepped.
Speaker:There's no time once it starts stir frying to do much of anything.
Speaker:So everything's going to be ready to go, but it is really simple.
Speaker:But the other thing is it requires concentration.
Speaker:You can't step away from a walk once you're truly stir frying
Speaker:because things will burn singe.
Speaker:It's, it's not good.
Speaker:You, you really have to be concerted, focused effort.
Speaker:And let me also say, before we finish up here and taste this, let me also
Speaker:say that I think it's always good to remind you that If you work with high
Speaker:heat and walks and all this and, you know, at high temperatures, it's good to
Speaker:put pets and children out of the room.
Speaker:Just just say there's nothing worse than a dog under your feet or a cat under your
Speaker:feet and you slip and suddenly disaster.
Speaker:It's not only that, when I put this beef in the sizzling that happened, I
Speaker:got splattered a little bit with some Lots of hot oil, and I mean, I'm used
Speaker:to that, but if the dog was sitting there like smelling it, the last thing
Speaker:I want is hot oil hitting his eyes.
Speaker:Yeah, or a kid.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's just a thing that you should put both pets and kids out of the room.
Speaker:Fish can stay in the room.
Speaker:If you've got a fish in an aquarium, it can stick around.
Speaker:In the kitchen.
Speaker:Right, sure.
Speaker:Anything that's in a tank.
Speaker:Maybe that's going into your stir fry.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:Um, gross.
Speaker:Okay, so goldfish and garlic sauce.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Um, so I'm sure there it's even I'm sure someone somewhere eats it.
Speaker:Okay, so let's chase this.
Speaker:It's really hard to pick up.
Speaker:And I'm going to tell you, you can't see me.
Speaker:But I tell you, I use a fort for chow fun.
Speaker:Don't hate me.
Speaker:But I I'm okay with chopsticks.
Speaker:I'm not afraid of them.
Speaker:It's just The rice noodles are slippery, and it's easy to use a fork.
Speaker:I'm sorry, I've ruined the whole authenticity thing with my fork.
Speaker:Oh, I'm going to use the chopsticks.
Speaker:And
Speaker:this is, I got that wok hei.
Speaker:You did.
Speaker:It was that blowtorch.
Speaker:And that is part of the charm of this dish.
Speaker:It's the breath of the wok, and it's supposedly that smoky flavor
Speaker:created by the flames licking up over the side of the wok.
Speaker:It's almost impossible to recreate it at home.
Speaker:So thus the blowtorch, um, if you don't have one, don't worry about it, but just
Speaker:remember that everything out of a wok should have that, well, not everything,
Speaker:but many things out of a wok should have that, uh, wake, especially this dish.
Speaker:There's something about the rice noodles when they get that touch of char on the
Speaker:edges and the caramelization from that.
Speaker:dark soy and the little bit of sugar that was in the sauce and the beef.
Speaker:It's actually tender.
Speaker:We, uh, we were, as you probably know, because we talked about this a
Speaker:while back, we spent a long weekend in Providence, Rhode Island, just eating.
Speaker:It's become this great food scene.
Speaker:And the first night we were there, we were, we ordered in Sichuan food, and I
Speaker:wanted a vegetable dish, so I just ordered in this really super spicy cabbage dish.
Speaker:Well, it showed up, it was just, you know, chopped cabbage, and, um, I think
Speaker:there were some scallions in there, and chilies, that was basically it.
Speaker:Lots and lots of chilies.
Speaker:And, uh, what we were dumbfounded by is that it had so much wake.
Speaker:It had a smoky flavor to the cabbage.
Speaker:It made me so happy and so jealous that I don't have such a stove at home.
Speaker:And it's really nice when restaurants can actually get.
Speaker:The walk a into it.
Speaker:A lot of, um, more downscale Chinese restaurants don't, but, uh, if they
Speaker:can, wow, they, it's a fantastic thing to get that smoky flavor
Speaker:into a cabbage dish like that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's making beef chow fun.
Speaker:If you want to find this recipe, you can find it in the Facebook group, cooking
Speaker:with Bruce and Mark will post a picture of this dish and also this recipe there.
Speaker:It's quite delicious to say the least, and you can then tell us what we're
Speaker:about to tell you, which is what's making us happy in food this week.
Speaker:Rhubarb pickles.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Last, the last episode, Mark said what made him happy was a
Speaker:rhubarb pie and he brought that to a friend's house for dinner.
Speaker:But the same friends that allowed me to Pick the rhubarb that went into his pie.
Speaker:There was a lot extra.
Speaker:They gave me more.
Speaker:I decided to try rhubarb pickles.
Speaker:So I cut them into two inch pieces and pack them into a big canning jar.
Speaker:And I made basically a simple syrup with vinegar instead of water.
Speaker:So I had vinegar and sugar, and I had star anise and ginger, and I poured that over.
Speaker:I refrigerated it for about four days, and they are sweet and sour.
Speaker:They were fibrous to start with, and then the more they sit, the softer it all gets.
Speaker:But they still stay crunchy.
Speaker:They do.
Speaker:I've never had pickled rhubarb, and it's really good.
Speaker:It's really good.
Speaker:So, what's making me happy in Food This Week is, It's that time of year
Speaker:for bread and butter pickles, and bread and butter pickles are just
Speaker:an annual favorite in our house.
Speaker:Bruce makes them by the giant jars, and it is that time of year to be making
Speaker:bread and butter pickles, not to can them, mind you, but to just make them
Speaker:and put them in the fridge and let them get really tasty over a couple of days.
Speaker:And then the last couple of weeks in your fridge.
Speaker:If you want to find out how we make bread and butter pickles You can
Speaker:check out the recipe on our YouTube channel cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Speaker:Bruce is making there You'll find a video of him making bread and butter pickles.
Speaker:It is such a fantastic thing to have in your refrigerator all summer long I
Speaker:think you make like three or four batches of it before the summer is finally
Speaker:over Love bread and butter pickles.
Speaker:That's the show this week.
Speaker:Thanks for joining us and being a part of our journey with food and cooking We hope
Speaker:you're as passionate about it as we are and every week we tell you what's making
Speaker:us happy in food So, please continue to tell us what's making you happy in food
Speaker:this week at our Facebook group cooking with Bruce and Mark And we might just
Speaker:end up making that dish here on another episode of cooking with Bruce and Mark
