Cooking up a storm (after the storm)

Sandy, Sandy, Sandy. You crazy gal. You wiped out our electricity for most of a week, and with it our refrigeration and our electric range. Luckily, the house was so cold that we really didn’t lose much food. I have eaten – and survived eating – shrimp in restaurants that were less fresh than the ones I cooked from our freezer the day after the power returned.

My first official act on the day the power came back was to put up a pot of beef stew. The miscellaneous meats that had been in the freezer were cooked over the next couple of days, including a big pork loin roast. Last night, as another storm raged, I made some delicious old-fashioned Cantonese-style pork chow mein. This is the soupy kind; if you want less sauce, reduce the amounts of chicken broth and cornstarch mixture by half.

Roast pork chow mein

8 oz Cantonese dried egg noodles

Peanut oil

About ½ lb roast pork

1 small onion

1 clove garlic

8 oz mushrooms, rinsed and wiped dry (try to use large ones)

1 small head bok choy

1 can sliced bamboo shoots

1 can low-sodium chicken broth

salt to taste

2 Tbsp cornstarch, dissolved in ¼ cup cold water

Soak noodles briefly in cold water (I don’t know why, but the package said to do this!), then cook them for 2 minutes in boiling salted water. Spread them out on a large plate to cool and dry.

Meanwhile, slice onion in strips. Cut the pork into strips about the same size. Mince the garlic. Remove any coarse stems from the mushrooms, slice them horizonally into disks, then stack the disks and cut them into strips. Wash the head of bok choy, then slice it horizontally. Open the cans.

Heat about 3 tablespoons of peanut oil in a large nonstick frying pan or wok. When the oil is hot, add the noodles. Cook them until they are crispy and golden on one side, then turn to cook the other side. The noodles on the inside should remain soft. Remove the noodles to a plate.

Add a little bit of oil to the pan if needed. Saute the onion briefly, then add the pork, garlic, mushrooms, bok choy, and bamboo shoots. Stir-fry until the vegetables are wilted, then add chicken broth and salt to taste. Stir up the cornstarch mixture, then add it to the pan. Cook, stirring, until the mixture is thickened. Serve it on top of the noodles with soy sauce to taste.