NOODLES

FRESH CHINESE EGG NOODLES ARE SIMILAR TO fresh Italian pasta. Both are bright yellow and made with eggs and wheat. Chinese noodles are made with a different kind of wheat flour that yields firmer noodles when cooked. Chinese egg noodles are often round, not flat. They can be boiled and then either stir-fried to make lo mein or chilled and sauced to make cold sesame noodles.

LO MEIN

When lo mein is good, the noodles are well seasoned and slippery but not greasy. The bits of vegetable and protein add interest but do not overwhelm the noodles. Just as often, though, lo mein is oily or the sauce is one-dimensional. Our goals were simple: figure out how to deal with the noodles (what kind, how to cook, how to drain and rinse, how to stir-fry) and then determine how to add flavor through the sauce.

Because lo mein noodles should be separate and soft, we thought it might be necessary to boil them past the al dente stage. But noodles boiled too long became mushy when stir-fried. In the end, we had better luck with noodles boiled just short of al dente. The noodles finish cooking while being stir-fried.

So how long should you cook noodles destined for use in lo mein? Because the time required to cook until not quite tender differs depending on the type of noodle, we found it best to taste the noodles and stop the cooking process 30 seconds to 1 minute before they reached al dente. The quickest and easiest way to stop cooking is to rinse the drained noodles under cold running water. This also washes off extra starch.

Next we wanted to find out if there is an advantage to tossing the rinsed noodles in oil. As it turned out, there are two. First, it helps to keep the noodles from sticking together before stir-frying—an issue that becomes more problematic the longer the noodles are held. (Our tests showed that noodles could be held in the refrigerator for up to a day before stir-frying.) Second, the oil enhances the flavor and texture of the finished dish. We had seen recipes that called for peanut and sesame oil. In our tests, we preferred sesame oil for its more potent flavor.

Up until this point, we had been using fresh Chinese egg noodles. As expected, frozen Chinese egg noodles worked fine as long as we took the noodles straight from the freezer (defrosting caused them to stick together and become gummy) and added two minutes to the cooking time.

Since many home cooks don't have access to fresh Chinese noodles, we wanted to find an alternative. The dried Chinese noodles sold in many supermarkets were terrible. Tasters found these noodles to be too thin for use in lo mein and their texture overly soft.

Dried Italian pasta was not much better. When cooked until al dente, the noodles were much too springy for use in lo mein. They were chewy rather than soft. Overcooking helped somewhat, but this was an imperfect solution.

Fresh Italian pasta, bought at the supermarket, produced much better results. In fact, lo mein made with Contadina fresh linguine was praised by tasters. It was much softer than dried pasta, and its bright color was more authentic. We tried fresh spaghetti but found that the thicker, flatter linguine noodle worked (and looked) best.

With the noodle component of the dish under control, we moved on to the issue of the sauce. Our goal was to use minimal ingredients to get maximum flavor. Color was another important consideration, as tasters expressed a preference for lo mein with a rich, dark brown color.

Chicken broth and shiitake mushroom soaking liquid worked equally well as the primary liquid in the sauce and added subtle flavor. In terms of convenience, chicken broth is the logical choice for the master recipe and all variations with animal protein. Shiitake soaking liquid is perfect for vegetarian lo mein, where the mushrooms add a much-needed chewy, meaty texture.

Soy sauce is a must for flavor, color, and authenticity. Many sources suggested using a thick, reduced, sweetened soy sauce product. While we liked thick soy sauce for its effect on color, the strong, salty but sweet flavor it contributed was not well liked.

Oyster sauce was another matter. As with the thick soy sauce, just two tablespoons colored the noodles beautifully. This time, though, tasters loved the flavor.

Pork is the most common protein used in lo mein (although other proteins work well). We found slightly fattier meat to be preferable. Meat from a pork chop was better than tenderloin.