Consider the Lobster Chow Mein Tonight

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Food

Consider the Lobster Chow Mein Tonight

Upgrade the typical chow mein by making your own chewy noodles and adding buttery lobster like the cooks behind Toronto's R&D restaurant.
lobster-chow-mein-alison-woo

Americanized Chinese food has come a long way from its greasy roots. These days, you'll find chefs adding marinated pork belly to fried rice, or, say, topping heaps of noodles with buttery lobster that was cooked sous vide.

Who says that a chow mein has to be relegated to cheap and cheerful? Why not use compressed air to make Peking duck? Maybe we should make liquid nitrogen chicken balls that explode with little hand-carved carrots shaped like the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac. OK, maybe that's going a little too far. But back to the lobster chow mein.

Chefs Alvin Leung and Eric Chong of Toronto's R&D have used their scientific expertise to combine the Chinese flavors they ate as kids with the tools and formulas they picked up while studying chemical and mechanical engineering. The result is tender hunks of lobster cooked precisely at 139.1 degrees Fahrenheit, tossed with spicy Thai flavors and chewy, handmade noodles that you won't find at your local takeout joint at 3 AM.

RECIPE: Lobster Chili Chow Mein

Give it a try and get your Weird Science on tonight. Tonight, get it right with this next-level chow mein.