Stir-Fried Noodles with Chicken and Mushrooms

When I left for Taiwan, what I knew as chow mein was a concoction of tinned, fried, and vaguely rancid brown noodles, topped with a taste-free chicken and celery sauce and served up proudly in high school and museum cafeterias. What naïveté!

• This is real chow mein, literally, “stir-fried noodles”: thin egg noodles that are first boiled to cook them, then stir-fried to give them a special gloss and texture, and finally tumbled in a light sauce with a stir