I have never stir fried in my life, so I really don’t know anything except that things are supposed to be small enough to cook quickly.
I have an electric stovetop and no wok-like pan. Am I doomed from the start?
Tell me your stir fry secrets!
I picked out this recipe. Does this sound like something a beginner could make work? Do I need the cornstarch? Does that sound like a lot of chicken for 4 servings?
It’s a lot easier with gas and a wok. I have managed with gas and a gigantic soup pan, and electricity and a wok.
Use any pan you have that will allow the chicken to be seared, get it as hot as you can and let it rip. I have no idea what use the cornstarch is. I think that 3 chicken breasts is OK for 4 people, although the recipe does seem a bit minimalist for my taste.
You’re not doomed, but the odds are stacked against you. I’m a mild wok Nazi and I insist upon a classic rounded bottom wok, wok ring and a raging hot gas flame. You can use a frying pan, but it’s not really well suited. With a wok, you can get it super hot and fling the stuff all over the place. In a pinch, you can use an electric stove if you blast it, but you really can’t get any fine (fast response) temperature control.
Woks are pretty cheap. I got a shitty but adequate wok, ring, lid and rounded spatula for about $10 in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
The recipe looks OK, but my generic stir fry marinade contains a boatload of fresh minced garlic, fresh minced ginger, soy sauce, and sugar to taste. I soak the chicken (I like pork better) in the marinade for a while. I chop up an onion, stir fry until translucent, remove to plate. Stir fry marinated meat until cooked. Toss in vegetables (my favorite is broccoli) and cook just until tender (no overcooking). Toss onions back in, (now’s the time to toss in the corn starch mixed in a bit of water if you want to thicken it up) heat every thing up and serve over rice.
Most people use peanut oil for it’s high smoke point, but canola oil seems to work pretty good for me.
++ A wok is not a hugely expensive thing. I got the one I still use about ten years ago as part of a work Secret Santa. It’s indestructible and just plain all round great.
I’m willing to invest in a wok, if it can be a fairly cheap investment.
Unfortunately, I’m not willing to invest in a new stove, so it’ll have to be electric. 
I thought I would use fresh garlic in the recipe. I can get fresh ginger if that makes a big difference. Or I could get that ginger in a tube stuff if it is a good choice.
If I don’t care if it’s thick, I can just skip the cornstarch? I’d prefer to skip it.
Go for an iron wok, and not a non-stick one. In fact, avoid non-stick for stir fry altogether. Teflon fumes are toxic at the temperatures you need to stir fry, which is hotter than Atlanta in a heat wave in July.
You can use a regular frying pan for the job (America’s Test Kitchen recommends it), but you have to be careful to not add so much food that it lowers the temperature of the pan by more than a little. Work in batches if you have to.
What’s ginger in a tube? You mean powdered? If so, no, nein, nyet, nada! That’s like substituting grape soda for raisins.
Garlic is good, but it burns easily, so make it last second. Screw the cornstarch.
Cornstarch and liquid makes a good gravy, but it isn’t required. I have a cheap wok (garage sale for $5) and an electric stove, but I can make do with a large skillet, too. The trick for me is to separate the meat, the quick cooking veggies and the longer cooking veggies into three piles. Put oil in the hot pan (I just use regular vegetable oil) along with chopped garlic and fresh chopped ginger. Stir fry for about 30 seconds (don’t burn it!,) then add the meat. Stir fry for a couple of minutes, then remove to a (clean) bowl. Add the long cooking veggies (with more oil if needed) and cook for a couple minutes. (Longer cooking veggies would be stuff like broccoli, carrots, celery, bok choy bottoms, mushrooms - shorter cooking veggies are bean sprouts, thinly sliced cabbage, thinly sliced onions, bok choy leaves.) Add in the shorter cooking veggies, stir fry 2 more minutes or so, then add the meat back in. Add the soy sauce and corn starch mixed with a little broth or water. Cook for about 1 minute more, and serve immediately. I like to stress myself out and make fried rice at the same time! Make sure you have all ingredients ready to go. You don’t have time to cut up anything when you are stir frying.
I often use a little bit of cornstarch in stirfry recipes. Too much makes it disgusting, like cheap Chinese takeout, totally gloppy (and 1 tablespoon is almost certainly too much. But using just a little bit makes the sauce slightly thick, which is important to keep it sticking to the veggies. WIth that recipe, I’d try about 1 tsp.
Go ahead and get fresh ginger, I say: I’ve never tried that ginger-in-a-tube, but fresh ginger is so easy to work with that tubular ginger can’t really be that much better. Plus fresh ginger just smells so freakin’ good when you grate it or chop it. Plus you can slice it thinly and make delicious tea out of it, as I recently discovered.
And what the hell is up with that recipe calling for garlic powder? You’re right in using real garlic.
Daniel
This bears repeating. Have EVERYTHING ready before you start. You’ll be too busy to do anything else.
Looking over that recipe, it seems totally bogus. Ground ginger? Three chicken breasts for four servings? Get some distance between you and that recipe ASAP.
2 chicken breasts, sliced thin
3 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs dry sherry
1 tbs (or less) table sugar
1 tbs (optional) corn starch
Mix everything together, and let sit a room temp while you cut up the veggies. Stir fry the veggies first, then plate. Do the meat (drained – and save the liquid), adding the veggies back at the last minute. This is when to add the garlic. Turn off heat, scoot the food to the edges, then add the liquid. Keep stirring.
Plate and enjoy.
My understanding is the same, that cornstarch is a thickening agent. My dad used to mix the cornstarch with water in a small cup, and then pour in into the pan.
It pretty much as to be, as it adds no flavor at all.
Agreed. NO TEFLON! Make sure that you don’t buy an electric wok as the thermostat will turn on and off and drive you batshit insane. Try to find a wok with the handles spot welded on the outside as any exposed rivets on the cooking surface are a pain in the ass. Cleaning is generally done with just water and then coat the surface with a thin layer of cooking oil applied with a paper towel to prevent rust.
With the ginger, I always go with fresh and just use a coarse cheese grater to mince it up. Lately, I’ve been tossing the remaining chunk of ginger into a jar of vodka and store it in the fridge. This is an adequate replacement for the times when I gel and forget to buy fresh ginger. I hate to admit it, but I often use minced garlic out of a jar since my garlic always seems to spoil before I get around to using it.
I end up with two issues with a lot of fresh stuff.
So if I could use the ginger paste, it would be easier.
You can freeze ginger root - I do it all the time. Nuke it for about 10-15 seconds, then cut a hunk off and peel it. I used jarred chopped garlic too. It lasts about a month before I use it all up.
I mostly agree with the above, except for a few things.
In an iron wok, you scoot the cooked stuff up the sides, where it’s not as hot. Then you dump the next thing in the middle. That’s why non-stick woks don’t work; everything slides back down.
In a flat fry pan, I agree with the cook, then scoop out strategy, but I’d do the meat first. The brown meat stuff will flavor the veggies.
Some Chinese cooks dredge the meat in the cornstarch; the result is the same. Thick sauce.
If your grocery has fresh ginger in big “hands,” you can just break off a smaller piece and buy that. Store unrefrigerated, in an unsealed plastic bag. I prefer to mince it, rather than grate. Less stringy stuff.
If you use fresh spinach instead of the cabbage, you can put all ingredients back in the pan, add the spinach on top, cover, and steam the spinach.
When I bought my iron wok, www.wokshop.com had the lowest price.
Hey, that’s the exact store I was talking about where I physically bought my wok (6 of them actually).
Thank you all so much. I’m glad I started this thread.
Okay, they seem to recommend the iron/enamel wok for electric stoves.
Do I want a lid?
Misread as: Help stir fry a newbie
You’d need an awfully big wok…