Stir Fry Method for meat and
poultry
Cut the meat into uniform sizes. This will ensure even cooking.
Marinating the meat with
spices and
corn flour is
highly recommended. It helps
to increase
the tenderness,
juiciness, succulence of the foodstuff.
How does it help? It seals the meat surface;
thus reduces the loss of water content.
Do not forget the equally important role of the ingredients to
enhance the taste of meat.
First part
is to heat some oil in a Chinese pan, or wok.
Briskly fry garlic, ginger or onion over
medium heat till fragrant.
Dish out the fried stuff, leaving the fragrant oil behind.
Second part is mainly the stir fry proper:
|
1. |
Continue heating the remaining
oil ( about 2 tablespoon per 500 g of meat) till fuming hot with
high heat. Do not get
intimidated by the fumes! |
|
2. |
Add in the marinated meat stuff
and continue frying very briskly. It should only take less than
2 minutes, the most! |
|
3. |
Dish out and serve steaming hot. |
|
4. |
If you need to cook more than
this amount of stuff, then it would be advisable to divided into
two portions. Stir fry two times. This is not time consuming as
each
stir fry will be reduced of the duration to, maybe 2 - 3
minutes. |
|
5. |
A word of caution: on addition
of meat, you mostly likely will get vision marred by smokes and
fumes. This is like a magic performance! That is the fun and
exciting part of stir fry! |
Stir Fry Method for
vegetables
Preparation for
vegetables stir fry:
A. Soaking the vegetables
The basic objective of soaking
vegetables is cleansing and getting rid of harmful
chemical residues. The
Chinese believe that equally important is the soaking
process. It promotes water retention. Result is a dish
of
succulent and 'crunchy' vegetable, with
minimum
loss of nutrients, water and colors.
Normally, vegetables are soaked for about 30-60 minutes. The
thicker leaves can withstand longer time of soaking.
For the softer, or more fragile leaves, prolong soaking would
undesirably change its texture.
Add 1
teaspoonful of salt and let stand for 5 minutes, prior draining.
This effectively helps to precipitate much of the
harmful
chemical residues.
Finally,
rinse once more with water to
remove the salt content too. Let
drain completely, till almost dry. It is now ready to be stir
fried.
B. Stir Fry Proper for Vegetables
Heat some oil in a Chinese pan, or wok.
Briskly fry garlic, ginger or onion over medium heat till fragrant.
Add marinated shrimps, stir briskly for 1 minute. Dish out,
leaving remaining oil behind. Then add the well-drained vegetables and briskly fry for 1-2
minutes. Add back the ingredients fried earlier. Stir to
mix everything thoroughly, takes 20 seconds. Switch off the flame immediately. Add 1-2
tbsp of soy sauce, and salt to taste.
Simple as that!
If you do not have shrimps or meat, or
if you are vegans, skip
the shrimp part, add extra soy sauce accordingly.
As a
reference, let
us stir fry 300 grams of vegetables only, without
using meat protein to give
a simple authentic stir fry
dish:
For
non-leafy vegetables like
capsicum, celery, cabbage,
French beans, stir fry time is about 1 minutes. Longer than
that, the dish will be soft.
For
lettuce, it takes about 30-60 seconds.
For
cabbage, about 2 minutes.
For
spinach, and other slower-cooked vegetables, increase the
stir fry time accordingly, by minute.
 |
|
Stir fry broccoli, cauliflower, mustards:
For thick-leafed
or thick-stemmed
broccoli,
cauliflower,
or more fibrous vegetable like mustard, it
is better to
blanch
in boiling water for 1
minute before stir fry. This would ensure that every part
of it, especially the inner part is cooked.
|
Blanching is a popular technique in Chinese cooking too.
It is engaged when the type of vegetable to be stir fried is
tough or needs more time to get cooked.
Blanching method is also used to get ready noodles before
the cooking proper.
Bring a pot of water to boil.
Add few drops of oil. Plunge
in the cut vegetable,
let boil for 30-60 seconds. Sieve away the hot water.
Rinse under running tap water
to stop further softening. The blanched vegetable is
now
ready to be stir-fried. This process preserves the color ( for
example: very green and glossy), texture, crisp and flavor of
vegetables.
The oil adds a touch of gloss to the blanched, enhancing
the beautiful natural colors of the vegetables.
In the
case of noodle, oil prevents the noodle strands from sticking
together.
For marinating purposes, soy sauce,
wine, sugar, five-spice powder, cornstarch or
tapioca starch are
very commonly used. Others include chili powder, salt, peanut oil,
pepper,
sesame oil and other spices.
|
|
Chili is
always a fantastic
taste enhancer to seafood
Prawn or meat marinated
with salt will toughen on
cooking. Rather, sugar is used.
The sugar coating acts as a sealant to prevent juice
drained from the prawn itself. Thus on cooking, it will be
juicy. The juiciness also gives the prawn the much desired
succulent feel.
In addition,
the sugar, in very slight amount, adds flavor to the prawn. For 500 g of seafood; add 1
tsp of chili powder, 1 tsp of sugar, 2 tbsp of soy
sauce, Marinate for 5 minutes. Stir fry over very
high heat for 2 minutes. |
Corn flour
(synonymous with cornstarch) |
|
This is the most commonly
used marinating agent. It is almost a must in Chinese cooking.
It is a
very good tenderizer too as it does not give rise to
health hazards like the normal chemical tenderizers do.
Use 2 tbsp of it per 500 g
of meat. Marinate for 5 minutes will suffice. Stir fry
for approximately 3 minutes. |
|
Tapioca
flour |
|
It serves as a very close
substitute to cornstarch under most circumstances |
|
Soy sauce
(light type)
Another must
have
in Chinese cooking!
|
|
This light variety is transparent under the light, in
contrast to the thick soy sauce. It does not tenderize,
but it greatly enhances the taste. It makes the whole
world of difference to the dish! It is chemically a
beautiful blend of soy bean, water and salt. So add the
plus factor in the dish!
Its basic
taste is protein type of sweetness (no sugar tinge )with
salty flavor. Adding soy sauce to a plain vegetable dish
will give almost the same effect of adding meat and
salt.
Use about 2
tbsp of soy sauce for 500 g of meat. Soy sauce, together
with corn flour complements each other. The combination
gives tenderizing and enhancing taste effects.
Salt is
usually not recommended to substitute for soy sauce.
Salt toughens the meat. Use 2 tbsp of dark soy
sauce per 500 g of meat, with two tablespoons of light
soy sauce. Marinate with 1 tbsp of corn flour. |
Black soy sauce
(thick type) |
|
This variety is black, thick
and opaque under the light. It is popular in meat
casserole preparation.
|
|
Pepper powder |
|
Suitable taste enhancer for
meat, soup and seafood. Marinate according to personal
preferences.
|
|
Five-spice powder |
|
Popular Chinese mix-spice
for meat. Marinate to taste, for
example, 1/2 tsp to 500 g meat. Indispensable in Chinese
barbecued pork, called char-siew.
|
|
Sesame oil |
|
Effective in ridding of the meaty smell. A popular flavor for meat.
Use 1/2 tsp of sesame, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, 1 tbsp of
corn starch to 500 g of meat.
|
Chinese wine
(rice wine, rose wine, shaoxin wine) |
|
Tantalizing, irresistible
and refreshing flavor. Effective in ridding of the
meaty smell. Use 2 tbsp of Chinese wine, 1 tbsp of
soy sauce, 1 tbsp of corn starch to 500 g of
meat. Need to marinate for a longer time for the
wine to sip and blend well. On serving, add in extra
tbsp of wine for extra 'kick'. |
