Story:

With the vast variety of Asian dishes that I actually do cook, this Beef Chow Fun Noodles has to be one of my favorite comfort foods. It is probably one of the most popular Asian noodle dishes— with different variations based on your cultural background—in Southeast Asia.

A fairly easy dish to put together, vegetables or meat can easily be substituted depending on what is available. This is my modified version of a classic dish that never fails to remind me of home. It’s definitely a dish that I would serve while hosting dinner parties with its different levels of sweet and salty flavors. This was one of the dishes I made during a dinner party I hosted when I first met Jave Yoshimoto.

This is an overhead view looking onto a round white plate filled with wide fried rice noodles, beef, and bits of green broccoli, spring onions, and choy sum. The plate has a wide rim and is rendered in contour with black ink. The shadows are light blue. The beef chow fun has been illustrated in great detail with variations in browns, tans, and reds. Texture, shading, and highlights are emphasized.
Jave Yoshimoto, Heinrich Toh’s Beef Chow Fun, 2021, ink, watercolor and gouache on paper, 9” x 12″.

Beef Chow Fun (Fried Rice Noodles)

Ingredients:

    • 32-ounce bag of fresh rice noodles (found In the refrigerated section of most Asian grocery stores)
    • 1 pound broccoli, chopped bite size.
    • 1 pound choy sum, sliced to about 3 inch strips.
    • 4 spring onions, sliced
    • 1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
    • 1 onion, sliced
    • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
    • 1 tablespoon peanut oil
    • 2/3 pounds sliced beef, sirloin

Marinade:

    • 2 tablespoons Chinese cooking wine
    • 1 tablespoon low sodium light soy sauce
    • 2 tablespoons oyster or mushroom sauce
    • 2 teaspoons corn starch

Sauce for noodles:

    • 1 tablespoon low sodium light soy sauce
    • 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
    • 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
    • 2 tablespoons sweet soy sauce
    • 1 teaspoon fish sauce
    • 1 teaspoon sriracha

Directions:

    1. Marinate slices of beef with the marinade in a mixing bowl and set aside for at least 15 mins.
    2. Place rice noodles in pot of boiling water, separating the noodles so they cook evenly. Boil for about 7 minutes or until al dente being careful not to overcook them. Rinse in cold water, drain, and set aside.
    3. In a wok or large nonstick skillet fry garlic in 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil over medium heat until fragrant. Add the marinated beef and vegetables and stir fry for about a minute. Remove and set aside.
    4. Heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable and 1 tablespoon of peanut oil over medium to high heat, add noodles, frying them for a minute before adding all the remaining sauces, tossing until noodles are evenly covered and seared.
    5. Return the beef and vegetables to noodles and fry for another 2 minutes adding green onions before serving.

Serves: 4
Cook time: 40 mins.

Heinrich Toh headshot. An Asian American man in his forties is seated in front of one of his large-scale prints with colorful and decorative flowers and geometric shapes in the background. He leans in, looking directly at the camera with a slight smile and a twinkle in his eye. He has a goatee and his black hair is styled in a faux hawk. He wears a black floral jacquard dress suit jacket with a black collared shirt with the top two buttons unbuttoned.Heinrich Toh is a printmaker and educator based out of Kansas City. He is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art and the La Salle College of the Arts in Singapore where he grew up. His work is in public and private collections that include the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, the Kemper-Albrecht Museum, Truman Medical Center, the Loews Kansas City Hotel, Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, and the University Hospital in Cleveland. When not making art, he loves spending time in the kitchen creating culinary bedlam.

www.heinrichtoh.com

 

In this square monoprint, the background is filled with a grainy black and white photograph of the sky as seen looking directly up between pine treetops. The trees are printed in blue-black ink and there is a sepia wash over the sky, which gives the work a vintage feeling. On top of this are layers of decorative imagery - orange paper Japanese lanterns, an orange rose, a purple rose, a purple dahlia, geometric patterns that recall origami paper, an ivory stamp, circular digital ruptures and bursts, and a gestural paint mark activate the composition. Heinrich Toh describes his work as investigating “layered and overlapping cultural elements, contrasting Eastern and Western sensibility while synthesizing the past with present. The reinterpretation of Floral Chinese brocade patterns alongside imagery of vast open landscapes from my travels, explore the definition of home, connection to my heritage and shifting mindscape, while seeking the familiar.”
Heinrich Toh, Dawning Wonder #7, 2020, monoprint, paper lithography on Rives BFK paper, 30” x 30”.