Tim Chin is a professional cook and writer who has contributed to Serious Eats and America’s Test Kitchen. A graduate of The International Culinary Center, Tim has cooked at restaurants in New York and Boston, working at Rouge Tomate, Northern Spy, and BiSq.

Tim Chin

The true test of any Cantonese restaurant is its beef chow fun. It has to be seasoned properly, the beef has to be tender, the noodles need to be slightly chewy, and—above all—it has to have the right amount of wok hei, the smoky, singed quality of properly stir-fried food. This recipe gets you restaurant-caliber beef chow fun at home. The most important part is using <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/hor-fun-noodles">fresh, homemade hor fun</a>, since the noodles are long, elastic, and nicely chewy even after saucing and getting tossed around the wok. Store-bought noodles won’t give you the same results, and making them yourself gives you a leg up on most restaurants. And the classic technique of using baking soda to marinate the beef makes it tender and improves <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/mastering-the-maillard-reaction">Maillard browning</a>. Ultimately, the success of this dish is dependent on proper stir-frying technique and producing wok hei, which is very difficult if you don’t have a burner with enough heat output to ignite aerosolized oil as you toss your food. If you’re using a wok on a relatively weak home stovetop burner, you have to focus on cooking in small batches to maintain a high enough heat to properly sear the ingredients without letting them steam. If you’re committed to leveling up your wok hei game and have outdoor space, cooking on a high-output outdoor wok burner is the way to go, but it’s cooking at warp speed—you have to work quickly and efficiently, toeing the line between perfectly cooked and straight up burnt. It takes practice, but once you get it down, you’ll be rewarded with real deal beef chow fun: tender-crisp vegetables; deeply browned beef; chewy, sauce-slicked noodles; and the intoxicating aromas and flavors of wok hei.

Beef Chow Fun