Beef Chow Mein

Toss the sliced beef with the cornflour, the 1 tbsp of light soy sauce and the Shaoxing wine until every slice carries a thin, slick coating.

Leave it for 15 minutes. That coating is velveting, and it does two things: it holds the juice inside the slice and it stops the surface drying out in a pan this hot.

Stir the 1.5 tbsp of light soy sauce, the dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, sesame oil and the 2 tbsp of water together in a small bowl.

Mix the sauce and line up every other ingredient beside the hob before the pan goes on. Once a wok is at temperature the whole dish takes four minutes, and there is no point in it where you can stop to measure something.

Cook the noodles in boiling water for 1-2 minutes, or as the packet says, until they are just loosened.

Drain them, rinse under cold water until they are cold, and shake them as dry as you can.

Toss the drained noodles with 1 tbsp of the oil so they do not weld into a block.

Shake the beansprouts and greens dry as well. Every drop of water that goes into the pan has to boil off before anything can fry, and it is the reason home stir-fries so often come out stewed.

Use a wok or frying pan at least 30cm across, and cook the whole thing in two goes if yours is smaller. A domestic burner cannot get four portions of anything hot enough at once.

Set the pan over the highest heat for 2-3 minutes, until the dry metal gives off the first wisp of smoke.

Add 1 tbsp of the oil and swirl it round.

Lay in half the beef in a single layer and leave it untouched for 60 seconds, until the underside has browned.

Toss for a further 30-60 seconds, until the slices are browned outside and still pink in the middle, then tip them onto a plate.

Reheat the pan and cook the second half in another 1 tbsp of oil the same way. All the beef at once drops the pan below searing temperature, and it stews grey in its own juice instead of catching.

Add the last 1 tbsp of oil, then the ginger and garlic, and toss for 15 seconds only. Aromatics burn in a pan this hot in well under a minute, and burnt garlic is bitter through every mouthful afterwards.

Add the greens and toss for 1 minute.

Splash in the 2 tbsp of water and let it steam off for 30-60 seconds, until the stems are bright green and still snap.

Add the noodles, spread them across the base and leave them for 1-2 minutes without touching, until they catch a little colour.

Toss the noodles through the greens.

Return the beef and any juice on the plate, and add the beansprouts and spring onions.

Pour the sauce down the hot inside wall of the pan rather than into the middle. Most of its water flashes off on the way down, where sauce dropped straight onto the noodles cools them and wets them at once.

Toss hard for 60-90 seconds, until everything is coated and glossy and the beansprouts still squeak against the teeth.

Serve straight away, before the noodles go on softening in the residual heat.