Stir-fry onions first, then add hard vegetables such as carrot and broccoli. Quick-cooking vegetables, such as snow peas, leafy greens and bean sprouts, should be added towards the end of cooking. If using vegies that have a combination of both textures, such as gai laan, add the stems first and the leaves later.
The key to making a really good stir-fry is using a very high cooking temperature so the food will cook quickly. Since stir-frying involves high heat, it's important to choose an oil that has a high smoke point. If you don't, the oil will burn and the whole dish will be ruined.
The best oils for stir frys are the oils with the higher smoke points. These tend to be the “thinner” oils such as peanut, grapeseed or canola.
Aromatic ingredients like garlic, ginger, green onions, chilies and spices. These ingredients are typically added to the oil first to infuse it with flavor. You won't need much; a few teaspoons to a tablespoon of total aromatic ingredients per person adds a serious amount of flavor.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wok, then fry the chilli and garlic for 1 min. Add the veg and toss to coat in the oil. Fry for 2-3 mins, then add the soy and chilli sauce, mixing well. Cook for 2-3 mins more until the veg are tender.
All foods give off some steam when cooking, so it's important to leave the lid off the pan during frying so the steam evaporates rather than collecting on the lid and dripping back into the hot oil.
Cut Thin Slices
The thinner the beef, the more tender it will taste and the less chewy it will be. Thicker strips require longer cooking times, which usually means the outside is overcooked by the time the inside is cooked.
Whenever I remember, I'll grab a bunch of green onions and add the whole bundle chopped up to my stir fry. They are so delicious! You can also use any other type of onion in your stir fry. Garlic and ginger are essential to making your stir fry flavor, as well as your stir fry sauce, pop.
Common aromatics in stir fry are garlic, green onion, ginger, and shallots. My go-to aromatic is chopped garlic. You'll also love chopped green onion in stir fries. You can use chopped garlic and green onion together.
Start with the hard vegetables like carrots and broccoli. Stir and scoop vegetables to the side to make room for more. Then add the softer vegetables, like sliced mushrooms and zucchini. Pour in some stock or water and always keep the veggies moving in the pan.
Personally, I always find 1 generous cup of sauce to be more than enough for a standard-size (14") wok filled with meat and vegetables, assuming it's the kind of stir-fry that you want to be reasonably "saucy", and also assuming it is thickened properly; if you dump a full cup of pure soy sauce in there, you'll just ...
Use olive oil to stir-fry or sear a steak.
Though it's nice to have two oils (one for cooking, such as canola oil, and one for finishing, such as extra-virgin olive oil), here's a secret: We use extra-virgin olive oil for high-heat applications, too. And it's completely fine.
Cornstarch! In his book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman recommends mixing 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch with the same amount of water, and tossing this into the stir fry just when it's almost done. It thickens in seconds, picking up the flavors of everything already in the dish and coating evenly.
Stir frying temperature is at least 450F — it can be higher but that's the minimum. If you stir fry using oil with a smoking point below 450F, not only will the food taste bad, it will also be a health hazard.
If you add too many ingredients at once, they will overlap and steam, rather than sauté, making them rubbery or soggy. "Cook each ingredient separately," advises Martinez. Not only does this ensure that you won't pile too much in the pan at once, but it will also account for different cooking times.
Meat first, then vegetables – If you want meat or seafood in your stir fry, cook it first then scoop it out onto a separate plate before cooking the vegetables. You'll add the meat back in at the end. 5. Don't crowd the pan – If you have too much in your pan, the vegetables will steam instead of staying crisp.
A proper sauce for stir-fries combines something salty—soy sauce, usually, though fish sauce also works—with something a little bit sweet. Mirin, sweet Japanese rice wine, contributes a wonderful fermented flavor, but if you don't have any, substitute a teaspoon of honey or sugar combined with two teaspoons of water.