My mouth was watering after watching a segment on Martha Stewart’s Noodle Show. There was this little Chinese lady standing over the cooktop with a big wok and speaking in broken English. “We make, uh, dish, Cha Chiang Mein, uh, like, uh Chinese spaghetti.” Awesome! Note: We really like this dish at Yu’s Mandarin in Schaumburg. However, the dish on television was more like home-style cooking. Yu’s Mandarin has a sauce that’s as dark as mahogany and as thick as molasses. We’d probably be afraid of how much soy sauce is actually in it.
So, I looked up the recipe on Martha Stewart and tweaked it to how we would make it, with what we have.
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1 medium onion, chopped fine
- 3 cloves garlic (I’d use more next time), minced
- 1 lb. ground pork
- 1 lb. spaghetti
Sauce
- 1-1/2 tbsp. soy sauce
- 2 tsp. black bean sauce (found in Asian stores or aisle)
- 1 tbsp. hoisin sauce (not the same as plum sauce)
- 2 tbsp. Chinese cooking wine (white wine)
- 2 tbsp. water
- 1 tsp. sugar
Cook spaghetti according to directions.
While pasta is cooking: Prep your garlic and onion. Mix all sauce ingredients in a bowl or mixing cup. Should be about 1/2 cup of liquid. Heat up the vegetable oil in your wok or pan over med-high heat. Add garlic and onions, saute until they become slightly translucent. Add sauce mixture and stir until heated – a few minutes. Add ground pork and break it up as it cooks. Continue stirring/breaking up meat until water/liquid has evaporated. Meat should look dark/seasoned. This will be about 10-15 min.
Serve meat mixture over spaghetti, but in my case, I had white rice available. So now it’s Cha Chiang Fan instead of Mein.
