Cantonese · noodle
Beef Chow Fun
干炒牛河 · Gān Chǎo Niú Hé
Stir-fried wide flat rice noodles with sliced beef, scallion, bean sprouts and a smoky wok-hei flavour.
Beef chow fun (gān chǎo niú hé) is a Cantonese stir-fried noodle dish that doubles as a practical test of the wok cook's skill. Wide, fresh flat rice noodles (ho fun) are stir-fried over the highest possible heat with thinly-sliced marinated beef, scallion, bean sprouts and a small amount of dark soy sauce. The defining flavour is wok hei — the smoky, slightly caramelised char produced when ingredients contact a flame-heated wok surface at temperatures that most domestic stoves cannot reach. A skilled cook produces noodles that are slightly burnished, separated, never clumped or wet; the beef is silky from marinating in baking soda and cornflour.
The word 'dry' (gān) in the name distinguishes this from the wet (sautéed in oyster sauce) version of the same ingredients. Cantonese food enthusiasts treat the distinction seriously: the dry version demands more from the cook and produces a more complex result when properly executed.
Ho fun are fresh broad rice noodles sold in Cantonese wet markets in wide sheets that are cut to order; the fresh noodle's moisture content and slight starchiness are what allow the wok-hei char to develop without the noodles drying out entirely. Pre-packaged dried versions produce a different dish.
Etiquette for ordering: specify gān chǎo (dry-fried) to distinguish it from the wet oyster-sauce version.
Where to try
Hong Kong: Sing Heung Yuen, plus traditional cha chaan teng. Guangzhou: many Cantonese houses.
Dietary notes
Rice noodles (gluten-free), beef, soy.
Cities to try Beef Chow Fun
Other south dishes
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More Cantonese dishes
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Flat rice noodles dry-fried with silky marinated beef, beansprouts and spring onion over a fierce wok flame.
- Cantonese Roast Goose烧鹅
Whole goose roasted to crisp-skinned tenderness. The most prized of the Cantonese siu mei roasted meats.
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