Lo Mein

Method

1. mix3 min
   small bowl, before the pan is lit
   soy sauce + oyster sauce + sesame oil + sugar (+ shaoxing wine, + white pepper), stirred until the sugar dissolves. Everything in a tossed noodle dish happens in about four minutes, and there is no moment in it to measure — the sauce is mixed first or it is mixed badly
2. boil4 min
   unsalted water, a minute short of the packet, rinsed and drained hard
   noodles, then rinsed under cold water and shaken dry. Rinsing removes the surface starch that would otherwise glue them into a mass in the pan — the opposite of what you want in pasta, because here the sauce is doing the coating and starch would just thicken it into paste
3. saute3 min
   highest heat, pan smoking, oil added then swirled
   vegetable oil + garlic + ginger for fifteen seconds, then + carrot + cabbage (+ mushrooms, + chicken cooked first and set aside), tossed constantly. High heat and constant motion is the whole technique: the pan has to stay hot enough to drive moisture off as steam rather than let it pool, or the vegetables boil in their own water and go grey
4. fold3 min
   noodles in, sauce poured round the edge of the pan
   + noodles + sauce, tossed with tongs until every strand is coloured and the pan is dry. Pouring the sauce down the hot sides rather than into the middle lets it caramelise slightly on contact instead of dropping the pan temperature all at once
5. season2 min
   off the heat, scallions last
   + scallions (+ bean sprouts), tossed once and served immediately. Both go in at the very end for crunch — thirty seconds more and the sprouts weep water into a sauce you just spent four minutes reducing