Traditional North American chow main from the 70’s. Great comfort food. Dead simple. Jazz it up however you like. Here are the basics:
Oil, I use peanut
Pack of hamburger meat
Pack of dry chow mein noodles
Bit of onion and celery chopped
Shiitake mushrooms, chopped
1 cup of chicken broth, low salt
Chinese style soya sauce
Water
In a skillet (that you have a lid for)on high, brown the hamburger meat. Remove and reserve for later.
Turn skillet to medium. Add a splash of peanut oil and fry the onion, celery and shiitakes until browned.
Crank skillet back to high. Add hamburger back to skillet. Add dry noodles. Add chicken broth and 10 splooches of soya sauce (you can always add more at the end to taste) and cover to steam noodles. After a minute or so, stir, check noodles for doneness(they won’t be done yet). Keep adding water and cover and recheck and stir until the noodles are soft. Don’t add too much water at a time because you want to end up with a dry chow main without overcooked noodles. You’ll probably have to add water 3 or 4 times to get the noodles to be nice and soft.
Season with fish sauce, sriracha, crushed chilli, sesame seeds or whatever floats your boat.