Beef Lo Mein

I'm a huge fan of Chinese/Japanese food. There are a few good places around here to get good ethnic food, but they're limited. The main things to watch out for are whether the egg rolls are frozen (most are, but some are good and some are horrible) and if the sushi is fresh. There's a great little hole in the wall here in town that we really enjoy, but the place is almost empty 98% of the times we're there. It's in a run down strip mall and we are surprised it's lasted this long, but we're not questioning it.

Beef Lo Mein

Cook Time:10 min
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients
12 ounces soba noodles
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
12 ounces grilled beef, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
8 grilled scallions, chopped
1 cup snap peas
1/3 cup shredded carrots
3/4 cup reduced-sodium beef broth
1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves


Cook soba noodles according to package directions.

Meanwhile, heat the sesame oil in a large skillet. Add ginger and garlic and sauté 1 minute. Add beef, scallions, snap peas and carrots and sauté 1 minute. Add broth and soy sauce and bring to a simmer and cook 5 minutes, until carrots are soft. Drain noodles and add to sauce. Toss together with cilantro.

*add some cornstarch and water to thicken the sauce, add more garlic and onion powder, add water chestnuts, do matchstick carrots

This is a really good, basic recipe for lo mein. If you're not up for beef, you can sub tofu, chicken or shrimp. And with the extra additions at the end, you can really make this dish your own by adding any extra veggie, spice or whatever you like.

If you can't get your hands on soba noodles, you can use spaghetti in a pinch. But soba noodles are going to be thicker and I think they have a more delicate texture than spaghetti noodles. Here's the package we were able to find locally:

And here's the final product! Please disregard the spills on the countertop:

The sauce is low sodium broth and soy sauce, so while you're still taking in a good bit of sodium it's not as much as if you went with the full on salt versions. The fresh cilantro is a nice addition at the end and you can always add more vegetables to the mix. And just because you're curious, we did use chopsticks to eat this, but from what I recall they were abandoned toward the end. It's just much easier to revert to our Western roots and employ a good old fork sometimes.