For the life of me I can’t make a good stir fry. Do I need a wok? What kind of wok? Higher heat? Everything I make turns out lacking that delicious crisp-tender texture and forgoing the perfect salty-sweet-spicy trifecta that a restaurant stir fry has.
So, share your tips and techniques for a good stir fry and your favorite recipes as well! If you like a particular brand of an ingredient, include that too.
It’s nigh impossible to replicate a true stir fry in a home kitchen: burners just don’t get hot enough.
I use a carbon-steel wok. You don’t want one of those non-stick doo-hickeys. A cast-iron pan, supposedly, also works very well. I believe Cooks Illustrated actually prefers it over a wok for the home kitchen. My technique is to heat up the wok or pan searingly hot, add a little oil, maybe some garlic and ginger, and begin by frying up/browning the meat. When the meat is sufficiently browned and almost fully cooked, I take it aside. I often do this in a couple of batches, as crowding the pan or wok will prevent the meat from browning. Then I add the veggies, with the ones taking the longest first (like broccoli) proceeding up to the quickest cooking ones (like bok choy or bean sprouts). I then add back in the meat, when almost everything is done, mix it all together, finish with whatever sauce I’m using.
Wow, so I was doing just about everything wrong! That whole post was extremely helpful. I tended to toss things in all at once, so the meat wouldn’t brown and it was (evidently) too crowded. Then certain veggies would come out mushy.
Do you know what brand your wok is, by chance? Asian store or Amazon? I have a crappy one that I want to replace.
What sauce do you like finishing it with? Which oil are you using to begin with, sesame, grapeseed, canola…?
Heat, heat, and more heat.
It’s been my experience that gas burners are really the only way to get your pan/wok hot enough for a good stir fry. If you don’t have gas burners, work in smaller batches. We have a glass-topped stove, and it seems like no matter what type of pan I used, something was just missing from my stir-frys. Then my parents-in-law got me an individual propane burner for my back porch, and that became my go to stir-fry station.
I think a real wok isn’t exactly necessary for a stir-fry, but it sure seems to be easier cooking in one. The large size of the wok makes it easier to get the items in it moving around.
Don’t crowd the pan/wok. Over crowding means more heat being transfered to the food, and less heat in the pan/wok, and that leads to soggy over-cooked vegetables instead of the slightly charred, crisp, fresh tasting ones that a good stir-fry is known for.
Cook fast. Have everything prepped and ready to go into the pan before you actually start cooking. There isn’t a vegetable out there that when properly prepped, should take more than 3 minutes to cook in the wok. Better underdone vegetables than over done is my take on it.
I usually season very simply for our stir-fry. Nothing more than a dash of salt, or soy sauce. But if you’re going to use a teriyaki or some sauce, put it in about 30 seconds before the dish is done, toss the fry a couple of times, and remove. Many of the traditional off the shelf sauces (this includes meat marinades) contain a sugar, and can burn quickly at high heats.
Our favorite stir-fry that I make pretty often includes button mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash, onions, and bean sprouts. Another we like is julienned carrots, sliced cabbage, and bean sprouts. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and serve.
All excellent suggestions above. You really need an outdoor setup because even if you get that kind of heat indoors, you will then have a lot of steam, grease and smoke that must be evacuated. And most home kitchen vents are not up to tht task.
I fully endorse the contents of pulkamell’s post–the biggest improvements to my stir-fry cooking came from cooking the meat in small batches and putting it aside until right before the end.
Oil: because of the high temperatures involved, I find canola oil works well for the actual cooking as it tends to resist smoking better. Things like sesame oil are more useful as adding flavor to sauces.
–speaking of which–
Fish Oil. That was the other big discovery for making stirfrys taste more interesting and–“authentic” isn’t really the right word–but… “closer to professional”, maybe? I add some to most of my impromptu sauces.
Sesame oil. It really makes a difference and adds to the depth of flavor. I don’t worry about it burning or smoking, because I usually toss my vegetables with it before they go in the hot wok. I really don’t put any oil IN the wok at all. But I like a “dry” stir-fry. Just the juice from the items cooked. I’m not big on saucy stir-frys.
This, in particular. Stir-frying should consist of a whole bunch of chopping followed by five minutes, at most, of cooking. Get everything chopped and set up in little bowls or whatever first, even if it means more dish washing.
I have no idea what brand my wok is. It’s just a 14-inch flat-bottomed carbon steel I bought in a Chinatown cooking supple store (along with a nice meat cleaver.) I don’t think the brand particularly matters, as long as you get something large enough with a flat bottom. A cast iron wok will also work well.
I found this article on the New York Times with a bunch of helpful stir-fry hints.
As for the sauces, I mostly just improvise. The very basic would be something like a mix of soy sauce, rice vinegar, maybe rice wine, and maybe some chili or chili-garlic sauce. Sometimes, it’ll just be plain oyster sauce with a little broth. Sometimes I have a little cornstarch to thicken, sometimes I don’t. I’m a big fan of Thai-style stir fries, so something as simple as fish sauce with a little bit of sugar and a boatload of basil and hot chili peppers is another one of my favorite ways to finish a dish.
Lots of good pointers here.
I’ll note that when I was in my stir fry phase pork was my favorite. IMO chicken is too easy to get dry and beef is too “heavy” a meat. IMO thin strips of well seared but barely cooked pork hit the sweet spot so to speak.
I agree. I only use sesame oil in my finish, and a little goes a long way, but I do use the dark sesame oils, and not the lighter cold-pressed types (which may be fine for stir-frying, I don’t know.) I can’t imagine stir frying something in 100% dark sesame oil.
What they said, plus fish/oyster sauce and Asian death peppers. Find an Asian grocery store and experiment with flavors.
Wow, thanks everyone! Both for the advice on prep, small batches, oils and what sauce mixtures to use. I especially appreciate the advice on what vegetables go well with what other veggies; the mixtures I’d been using came out weird.
Am I screwed because I have a shame electric coil stove? I am moving at the end of July and will have a new gas stove, so that’s good news.
In the meantime, I think I’ll try a stir fry on my future MIL’s grill, her side gas burner.
Brands of fish and oyster sauce - do they matter? What’s everyone’s favorite cut of beef?
billfish678, what kind of pork? Loin? Tenderloin?
Shark Sandwich, julienned carrots, sliced cabbage, and bean sprouts sounds wonderful.
Yeah, last time I made this spicy noodle dish (with snap peas, bell peppers, thinly sliced carrots) I realized I’d run out of regular sesame oil. Toasted sesame oil is not an acceptable substitute :smack:.
So, if understand this, the procedure is something like this:
Is that stir-frying in a nutshell?
You can also, if your wok is big enough and the amount of food isn’t too large, just jam the meat off up the side of the wok away from the direct heat. (And it’s definitely worth the time to slice the meat up very thin to allow it to cook quickly).
Pretty much. Blooming your spices in hot oil really lets them shine through.
lindsay - Pretty much any brand of oil or sauce will do. They are fairly interchangable.
They do. Some of the Filipino brands I’ve had have an odd ammonia-like flavor to them that I don’t like. This brand, for instance, I stay away from. One brand that is widely available and is my fish sauce of choice is Squid brand. As for oyster sauce, the Lee Kum Yee Premium is very good. I usually just look at the ingredients and see which brands have “oyster extractives” as the first ingredient, rather than being buried behind water and sugar.
Any steak cut works well. For more economical cuts, flank (cut across the grain) and top rounds are good. Sometimes, I even buy something generically called “sandwich steak,” which is already sliced very thinly for you, and slice it thinly again into very thin strips.
For pork, loin and tenderloin work best, as they are lean steak-like cuts suitable for fast and furious cooking.
For chicken, anything works, but I like breast in stir fries. I also like to cut it into extra thin strips, if I have the time.
As for blooming the spices in the oil, that is almost always a good idea, but just be careful not to let the spices burn. Anything involving dried peppers requires paying attention (because of their sugar content) and moving around the spices quickly so they don’t burn.
Again with my stupid questions:
This all sounds very much like what people do with pasta: i.e., put some oil in the pan and use it to heat a mixture of fettuccine, mushrooms, onions or whatever the hell else you want to throw in there. And it also sounds like a lot of curry recipes in which you basically toss in and stir ingredients in a sequence that maximizes the properties of each, ending up at the end with some kind of sauce. Is there a unified theory of throwing stuff in a hot pan, or are these considered distinct practices?
Perfect, thank you :). They’re on my grocery list; one as a must buy and one as an avoid!
Also perfect. The cuts you mentioned were what I suspected but wanted to confirm.
I love the spices in hot oil thing. That I’m good at. Yup, pulykamell beat me to it
I’ve burned many a red pepper flake. Hey, at least back then they weren’t Penzey’s 
Good to know. Guess I’ll just look for sauces that aren’t too high in the sodium department.
I’m by no means an expert (see: this thread) but you don’t need a wok or high heat for the pasta stuff. Nor are you going for the crisp-tender thing that’s been difficult to obtain for many people.
Does anyone add sugar, or is fish sauce the particular taste I’m craving in my own stir frys? How many of you are adding grated ginger and minced garlic?
IIRC, from an older thread about this subject The Wok Shop.
I’ve woked on electric, the trick was to really let the pan get hot. You want to see smoke, if you think it’s hot enough, it ain’t!
CMC fnord!