This past week I made the Beef Chow Fun on a Home Burner recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook.

First, on the noodles

This recipe introduces “hor fun (chow fun)” noodles, which Kenji describes as wide rice noodles. He says

For best results, use freshly made hor fun noodles either from a local shop or homemade…. If using refrigerated fresh hor fun noodles or dry noodles, you will need to boil them before use…

I couldn’t find these noodles at YDFM, First Oriental Market, Nam Dae Mun, or Super H-Mart.

The closest I found were at the Buford Highway Farmer’s Market. They had a several fresh/refrigerated rice noodle options, a few from a Chamblee company, but all were labelled in Vietnamese. I think there was one that could’ve been very close, but it was hard to see the size of the noodle in the bag. I ended up getting Vietnamese fresh rice noodle sheets, thinking I could use them as a shortcut in Kenji’s referenced homemade noodle video from Pai Chongchitnant.

For homemade noodles, it looks like you steam sheets of rice batter, then stack and cut them into noodles. This ended up being quite tedious with the purchase sheets. I ended up warming them in the microwave with a mug of hot water to make pliable. At first I tried cutting the width I wanted and then peeling apart the noodles, but the noodles were so thin, it was hard to separate without tearing. Separating a whole sheet and then cutting into noodles proved to be much easier.

When it came time to make the dish, I followed Kenji’s note on using refrigerated hor fun noodles, and boiled them briefly. I think this was a mistake. I think the microwave steaming loosened them up enough, and this cooking over did it.

For next week’s Pad See Ew, I plan to try the homemade method from Pai.

The stir-fry itself

The stir-fry was standard fare. The beef gets tenderized and marinated like last week’s Chow Mein with Beef and Peppers (and other beef stir-fries). The marinade is dark and light soy sauces, Shaoxing wine, salt, and cornstarch.

The beef is then quickly fried in hot oil and removed.

Onion, garlic, scallions, and bean sprouts are stir-fried until crisp and charred, then removed.

The noodles then get stir-fried with half of the sauce, a mixture of light and dark soy sauces and Shaoxing wine. Once they’re lightly charred, they’re also removed.

For the wok hei, which Kenji says is a defining feature of the dish, you go over the beef and vegetables and the noodles with a kitchen torch.

Everything goes back into the hot wok and tossed, and then the rest of the sauce is added.

Once combined and the sauce is dry, you season to taste with salt, white pepper, (optionally) MSG (which I did, since I have some), and soy sauce.

I thought the end result was fine. The noodles were on the mushy side, and I tried to ignore that in assessing the flavor. My son, as expected, loved the beef. Megan thought the noodles were good. I thought it was just ok.

I’m not sure I’ll do this one again. I look forward to Kenji’s Pad See Ew recipe, as Megan and I are both fans of that dish. I’ll see how the homemade noodles go.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.