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.
For a basic stir fry, you'll want about 3 tablespoons of sauce. Most of the liquid will cook off, leaving you with just the flavors. If you'll be serving the stir fry over rice or other grains, you'll want about 1/3 cup of sauce and may want to thicken it up with a bit of cornstarch or flour.
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.
For perfectly cooked meat, tofu, tempeh, and/or vegetables, you want to make sure that the pan is not crowded. 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.
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.
A second rule of thumb for stir-frying: Choose one vegetable per stir-fry. Not all vegetables cook at the same rate, and getting two vegetables to hit that cusp between tender and crisp at the exact same time is pretty much impossible.
Can I add water to a stir fry? Yes, if you want to steam the vegetables. Sometimes I will add 2 tablespoons of water or broth after adding the vegetables. I put a lid on the pan and allow the ingredients to steam for 2 to 5 minutes depending on how raw the vegetables are and how much food there is.
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.
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.
A great stir-fry typically consists of four important components: protein, vegetables, aromatics, and sauce. Standard stir-fry starts with one pound of protein and two pounds of vegetables, and a basic stir-fry sauce (recipe below). You can add aromatics or herbs to change the flavor profile of your dish.
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.
Blanching means the broccoli is briefly cooked in hot water and then immediately removed and placed into an ice bath to stop the cooking process. This pre-cook method helps preserve the bright green color and it also allows the broccoli to cook faster, which keeps the broccoli crunchy.
There are a few different seasonings that make fried rice taste just right. The most important sauces to add are soy sauce, oyster sauce, and fish sauce in fried rice. All three add unique flavors to rice, but it can be easy to go overboard. Make sure you add small amounts of each and regularly taste the rice.
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.
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.
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.