Pork & Shiitake Mushroom Lo Mein
The key to this dish is fresh pasta, not dried, and freshly snipped chives. However, dried Shiitake Mushrooms work just as well as fresh ones.
This isn't anything like the Lo Mein that you will find on a typical Chinese restaurant menu. I took two root recipes from a very obscure cookbook printed in 1972 with an unimaginative title called The Chinese Cookbook by Craig Clayborne and Virginia Lee. I have made many modifications over the years to this standing recipe that I can call it my own. If this is too much food for you to make, just cut the whole ingredient list in half. But I implore you to note, the leftovers are sublime and they microwave well.
This recipe calls for using fresh pasta, which you can generally buy in most grocery stores these days that's refrigerated and sold in clear plastic containers. Don't be tempted to use dried pasta like the kind sold in boxes on your grocer's shelves. That's fine for spaghetti and meatballs, but it won't work nearly as well with this dish. Trust me, because I've tried.
I also want to call attention to the fact that you want to buy linguine, not spaghetti or fettuccine or angel hair pasta. The thick, flat density and shape of linguine holds up to the double cooking method and won't break up into a hunk of semolina mess.
This recipe also calls for fresh shiitake mushrooms, but if they are not available, you can generally find dried shiitake mushrooms in the Asian food section of your grocery store. Reconstituted shiitakes according to the directions on the package will work just fine with this recipe.
And my final word of advice: use freshly snipped chives, not dried. The fresh chive aroma combined with red wine vinegar that finishes the dish really makes it, so much so, that absent fresh chives, I’ve been known to simply postpone making this recipe.
Pork & Shiitake Mushroom Lo Mein
Ingredients
- 1 cup peanut oil
- 1 lb ground pork
- 8 oz fresh or reconstituted dried shiitake mushrooms, with stems removed and sliced into long pieces
- 1 large heads of bok choy
- 2 9-oz packages of fresh linguine
- 1 cup dry sherry wine
- ½ cup light soy sauce
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 cup red wine vinegar
- 1 bunch chives
Instructions
- Like any good wok chef, prepare all your ingredients ahead of time so they are at the ready and within arms reach before you begin, known in French cooking terminology as Mis en Place.
- Cook your pasta first in boiling salted water according to package directions, but usually, this takes 3-5 minutes.
- Drain the pasta through a colander, and then re-fill the same pot in which you cooked the pasta with cold tap water. Put the colander in the water and hold the pasta until ready to introduce to the recipe.
- Prepare the bok choy by first washing all the leaves; then slice the leaves perpendicularly to the stem. You want mostly the green leafy parts of each leaf, and a bit of the white stalk, but discard the part of the stalk at the bottom where there is no longer any green leaf.
- Heat a wok to the smoking point. Drizzle 2-3 tbsp of the peanut oil and let the oil heat until smoking. Drop in the ground pork and stir-fry until the pork has separated and all pink color is gone. Remove to a platter and set aside.
- Add remaining oil and drop in the mushrooms. Stir-fry for 2-3 minutes until the mushrooms are tender.
- Drop in the bok choy. Stir-fry for another 5-7 minutes until the boy choy collapses, the leaves take on a dark green color and the stocks are tender.
- Return the pork to the wok and heat through.
- Remove the colander of pasta from it water bath, allow to drain, then shake vigorously to remove as much water as possible.
- Add the chicken stock to the wok and then add the well drained pasta. Methodically stir-fry while cutting the noodles into pieces with your chaun until all pasta is about 2-3 inches in length. Mix the meat, vegetables and the pasta thoroughly, and keep the mixture in motion so the pasta does not stick.
- After 4-5 minutes, add the sherry, vinegar and soy sauce. Mix thoroughly and cook another couple of minutes.
- After the liquid is partially absorbed and reduced, add the chives and mix again.
- Remove the dish to a large serving bowl or hold in a 200-degree oven until ready to serve.
- Serve in deep rice bowls with additional red wine vinegar on the side.
Notes
- Dried Shiitake Mushrooms will reconstitute in thirty minutes after covering with boiling water. Turn them over about half way through. Drain through a colander, remove the stems and slice lengthwise.
- The easiest way to prepare fresh chives is to simply snip off the ends with a pair of scissors.
