"Be scared: it's good for your supper." Nigel Slater
No I don't think I shall ever be able to stir fry - like a pro that is anyway. Deep down I probably knew I was doing it all wrong. I tend to just chuck a whole lot of ingredients in a wok - well onions, garlic and ginger first - and at least I get that right - and I suppose I realise that you add floppy greens last and bits of meat first. But I never really know what flavours to use, and I tend to throw in a whole lot of things that need using up plus a bit of soy sauce. And that's probably what most of us non-Asian people do. But, as Nagi Maehashi says:
“You can’t just put soy sauce in a bunch of vegetables and meat and call it a stir fry. Like it’s just not going to be tasty.” Nagi Maehashi/The Guardian
I'm never proud of my stir-fries, unless on the very rare occasions when I follow an actual recipe. They are eatable of course, but not memorable. And actually I now know that I shall never be able to properly cook a stir fry, because I'm not cooking on a furnace, I don't have the right kind of wok, and I don't maintain the one I have properly anyway. I came to this conclusion having watched a couple of real Chinese videos, listened to Adam Liaw and read Nagi Maehashi - even Nigel Slater who is definitely not Asian - all telling me how. So I was marginally reassured by Nigel when he said:
"To stir-fry, you need brutal heat and thin steel. There are no half-measures, no wimp's version, no slow lane. Ideally, you should also have access to the high-power gas jets of the industrial kitchen and the blackened patina of an authentic, much-tempered wok. But don't let that put you off this exciting way to cook - I did say 'ideally' - and there is no reason why the brave domestic cook should not have a go." Nigel Slater
I do have a gas fired wok burner but I'm pretty sure it's not really powerful enough. If you watch Asians with a wok there are flames. I'm very wary of flames. So yes, I'm not brave enough. Also my wok is flat bottomed and so it won't easily slide around for tossing. The edges catch on the gas ring. So really I should go to my nearest Chinese food store - there are heaps around here - and buy one of those cheap thin ones with the round bottom, and then do the seasoning process we all really know we are supposed to use for everything from woks to Le Creuset pots. I have tried that in the past, but that also has never worked for me, although some of it may be down to my enthusiastic washer-upper husband, whose favourite washing up tool for pots is a steel scrubber.
So am I doomed? Well probably not entirely. I am guessing I can still have a go at an almost alright stir-fry, because I've also been doing the cooking wrong anyway. And here I turned to Adam Liaw for the correct method, although I have to say that my subsequent searches were pretty much aligned with what he says below and also what he explained on an audio piece on the ABC website - Adam Liaw on the perfect stir fry in which he explains it all.
Elsewhere he says:
"There are two common mistakes novices make when it comes to wok cooking. The first is to use too many ingredients. The second is to overload the wok." Adam Liaw
By too many ingredients - he says you should restrict to a maximum of three - and illustrated this with his Beef and broccoli which he said was his favourite stir fry. That said, he also says:
"Traditional Chinese cuisine praises a vibrant mix of colours, so a small amount of a bright green or red ingredient is added at the end of cooking for fresh flavour and a pop of colour – these are meant to be garnishes, not major components of the dish."
His rule for a stir fry, which others confirmed are:
"1. Use fewer ingredients. Stir-fries aren't a place to throw in everything from your fridge.
Confirmed by Nigel Slater who says:
"The golden rule is to ignore any recipe that says: 'Serves 4'. Wokkery is for one, or two, at a push. More than that, and you will have too much food in your wok and not enough heat to go round."
But to continue with Adam Liaw's rules:
2. Don't over-season.
3. Use a good wok. I recommend carbon steel, with a handle.
4. Order of ingredients is all important. Oil > Aromatics > Meat > Vegetables > Seasonings > Thickener
5. Don't overcrowd the wok, and don't stir."
You see I stir, because I can't toss, I don't have the right wok, I put in too many ingredients and I overcrowd. I probably put the things in in the right order but I bet I don't have the oil - preferably peanut - hot enough. If you put a drop of water in it it's supposed to spit within seconds. I actually half watched a Michelin starred Chinese chef teaching stir frying techniques in a video on the South China Morning Post in which he said that a good stir fry has to know when it's done by timing because he can't see because of the steam coming off of the wok. And there were a lot of flames along the way as well. It's worth a watch if you're interested in such things.
Other things that I picked up along the way? Cut your meat very thin and your vegetables small. Indeed with some vegetables - most really, because the list included broccoli, which is softish, par cook them before adding them to the stir-fry. The overcrowding dictum is important because if you overcrowd each item will not be in touch with the hot wok all the time. That's why the food has to be constantly moved around - the experts toss it, although you can also use a large metal spatula. If there is too much in the wok it will steam or braise rather than fry.
Seasonings include any sauces. And here I come to Nagi Maehashi, who is of Japanese descent and therefore approaches the whole thing slightly differently. She has a couple of posts which she uses to teach her way of cooking a stir fry - with noodles.
The first of these is for Real Chinese all-purpose stir-fry sauce - shown here - a brown sauce which she calls Charlie because it's brown. It is made up of soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, Chinese wine, sugar, cornflour and white pepper. You just mix them all together and it will keep in the fridge for ages. So when you get to that last phase of your stir-fry you just pour some in. I confess I have never used oyster sauce - mostly because the very idea of oysters repels me, but then maybe this doesn't really taste of oysters, and besides it's a sauce not oysters. Maybe I should give it a go. Hoisin sauce also seems to be a pretty constantly used sauce for stir fries. She also adds that you can add other things, such as chilli to this.
I'm sure she is right when she says that most Chinese restaurants have a similar sauce that they use for their stir-fries, to speed up the process. They don't make a new one every time. However, they probably have a few different ones.
She uses the sauce in her second post - a recipe for Chinese stir-fried noodles which she uses as a template for a noodle stir fry. I'm not sure that she sticks to the three ingredient rule because she also gives a list of the proportions of the ingredients to use, which implies that you can add as many vegetables as you like:
1 1/2 cups noodles + 1/2 cup protein + 2 to 3 cups (packed) vegetables* + 2 tbsp Real Chinese All Purpose Stir Fry Sauce + 1/4 cup water + Optional Add Ons (Base Flavour and Additional Flavourings)
I think the two to three ingredients mantra is probably worth pursuing however, as you would definitely get more variety that way - as Adam Liaw said:
"In the first two aisles in the supermarket you've got 4,000 stir fries to try"
So below are just four examples which range from Coles, which has heaps of recipes you could try - this one is Sweet 'n' spicy pork and celery stir fry and since David just bought me some celery, perhaps I should try that; Cantonese chicken with pickled mustard greens - from the much praised American Chinese website The Woks of Life; Nigel Slater - because he chipped in with his Anglo thoughts on the matter - Cashew chicken and Kylie Kwong - possibly Australia's top Chinese chef Stir-fried scallops with ginger and snow peas
It's an ancient art which originated in China:
"Stir fry traces its lineage back to ancient China, where it emerged as a practical solution to the culinary challenges of cooking over high heat with limited fuel sources. The technique involved quickly cooking bite-sized pieces of meat, vegetables, and grains in a wok—a versatile and efficient cooking vessel." Brew and Feed
It is indeed versatile and efficient - and fast - which is probably its major attraction today, but I suspect it requires much more skill than at first may appear to be the case.
I should have looked at this before, because I have definitely learnt a few things. Also,of course, the technique has spread from China, at first into the rest of Asia and then, with the Chinese diaspora across the world. You can probably get Chinese stir fry in Greenland somewhere. And I bet people like Yotam Ottolenghi are doing all sorts of different things with it.
POSTSCRIPT
15th August - happy birthday to my oldest granddaughter. 17 today. Where did the years go?
2023 - The second time around - Ottolenghi's Herb dumplings with caramelised onions
2022 - Another Parisian address
2021 - Marshmallows
2017 - Lucky dip - figs
Comments