Chicken Lo Mein

Thanks to everyone who sent me recipes after my request last week!  I've been trying some new things and I plan to post on my favorites!  Here's the first of (hopefully) many!
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I love chinese food.  My two favorite dishes are sesame chicken and chicken lo mein.  I figured out how to make an amazing sesame chicken dish awhile back with the help of a bottled sauce in the Asian foods aisle at Giant Eagle.  But chicken lo mein always seemed too intimidating.  Not all grocery stores sell lo mein noodles, and some of the vegetables that I needed - such as water chestnuts and bean sprouts - seemed a little obscure.

But apparently I never really looked very hard.  This weekend we shopped at Kuhn's instead of Giant Eagle (Kuhn's is a considerably smaller store) and they had everything we needed.  We decided to go with a frozen bag of stir fry vegetables instead of buying fresh, which helped considerably since Kuhn's did not, in fact, sell water chestnuts.  But they did sell bean sprouts and they even had lo mein noodles so we didn't have to substitute linguini.  We were excited.

With all of the ingredients in place it was time to start following the recipe.  Ingredients aside, lo mein is definitely a more complicated dish than I normally make. It took about 45 minutes from start to finish and I was busy the ENTIRE TIME. 

Yum!

But, oh my god, it was good.  We could not believe how much it tasted like restaurant quality lo mein!  Even more authentic tasting than my sesame chicken dish (probably because I bake the chicken instead of frying it.)

So, even though it's a long recipe, I'm going to post the entire thing, complete with pictures.

Ingredients:
- 8 ounces of lo mein noodles (or linguini)
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken, cut into pieces
- 1/4 cup soy sauce mixed with 1 tsp sugar
- 8 tablespoons oil (use less if you can0
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 2 cups bean sprouts
- 1 bag frozen stir fry vegetables
- 2 tbsp cooking sherry

Instructions:
1. Boil water for pasta and cook while starting some of the other steps below.  When the pasta is done, put it in a bowl and mix with a little oil to keep it from sticking together.

 
2. In a medium sized bowl, combine garlic powder, 1 tablespoon of the soy sauce/sugar mix and the chicken.  Mix until the chicken is well coated.

3. In a wok, heat 3 tablespoons of oil over high heat.  Add chicken and cook until browned and done.

 
Remove chicken from heat and put in a bowl.

4.  Add 2 more tablespoons oil to the wok and once hot, add the frozen vegetables.  Stir-fry for 5 to 8 minutes, then add the bean sprouts the 2 tablespoons of sherry and stir fry for an additional 2 to 3 minutes.

 5.  Using tongs or a slotted spoon, list vegetables out of the liquid and add to the chicken bowl.  Discard liquid.

6. Add 2 tablespoons oil and when hot, add noodles.  Using tongs, mix noodles until they are hot and covered with oil.

7. Pour on remaining soy/sugar mixture.  Stir until the noodles are covered in sauce.

8. Add chicken and vegetables and stir.

 9. Add salt and pepper to taste, if desired.  Cook entire mixture until hot and serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings
633 calories per serving if made exactly as described above, however, it is possible to use less than the listed  8 tablespoons of oil, which will save you a lot of calories.