Beef Chow Fun with Bean Sprouts or Chinese Broccoli

This is a really easy dish to make at home, especially using the recipe I'm going to share with you below. As a working parent supporting two kids on her own, my mom did not have time for fancy recipes. If it weren't a dish she could cook in less than an hour, it wasn't going on the dinner table. This was one of those dishes that showed up regularly for dinner since it was a favorite of me and my brother, and it was super quick to make. Here's the recipe below for four.

Ingredients:

2 lbs. wide, flat rice noodles

1 lb. beef flank steak, sliced (or more, if you want more meat in the dish)

1 yellow onion, sliced

1 lb. bean sprouts

Canola oil (for stir fry)

Oyster sauce

Soy sauce

Sugar

Black pepper (optional)

2 green onions, sliced into 1-inch segments (optional)

Instructions:

1. Marinade the sliced beef in some oyster sauce, about 2 tbsp. If you like it a bit peppery, add some ground black pepper to the marinade as well. Make sure to mix the sauce with the meat. Let it sit for at least 10 minutes.

2. Loosen the noodles. If they aren’t fresh, they’ll be a bit tough to unravel. Take care not to break the noodle; eating small pieces of broken noodle is not as yummy as long strands! Once the noodle has been loosened from its packaged state, mix in about 4 tbsp. of oyster sauce by hand until the noodles are coated and have a light brown color to them. Heat in microwave for 1 minute if the noodles are too hard, but if they're fresh, you can by-pass the microwaving.

3. Add some oil to the wok. Stir-fry long slices of one yellow onion until it starts to become translucent. Add the beef slices, and stir around until the meat is cooked through. Slight pinkness is acceptable, since you'll be cooking the meat for a bit more before serving. Remove the meat from the wok and set aside.

4. Add a bit more oil to the wok and stir fry the bean sprouts (and the green onion if you have some) until the bean sprouts turn yellow. Alternatively, if you're making beef chow fun with Chinese broccoli instead, this is the point that you would add the Chinese broccoli and stir it around til the leaves are wilted.

5. Add the noodles to the wok and mix well with the bean sprouts. If needed, add a bit more oil to the sides to keep the noodles from burning. Add some soy sauce and sugar to taste. (Approximately 2 tsp. of soy sauce and ½ tsp. of sugar.) Once the taste of the noodles and bean sprouts has been adjusted, add the beef and onion back in. Mix all the ingredients and serve hot.