How to Make Stir Fry

Despite being one of the simplest dishes in East Asian cuisine, it can actually be surprisingly difficult to get a stir fry just right. While it only takes a matter of minutes to cook, the technique needed to perfect the dish may need some refining. Here we share our top tips for creating the best stir fry meal.

Achieving the Best Taste

Arguably one of the most important parts of a meal is its taste. The taste will largely determine how enjoyable a meal is, but getting it right can be tricky.

While following a recipe usually makes achieving a good taste easier, stir fry dishes can allow for improvisation, making use of ingredients available in your fridge or pantry.

Preferred Flavour

With this improvisation comes the need to really consider which flavours will work well together. Much of the flavour will come from the stir fry sauce, so decide whether you want the umami taste of fermented black bean sauce, spicy notes from a chilli-based sauce, or a simpler dish with a hearty splash of soy and oyster sauce.

Subtler Taste

If you are cooking with interesting vegetables, then you can keep the sauce on the subtle side with a simple chicken stock, to allow the flavours of the key ingredients to shine through.

Choosing the Right Ingredients

Cooking a stir fry can be a great way of using up ingredients you have at home, but this can also put you at risk of turning the dish into a mishmash of conflicting tastes and textures.

Pick a maximum of five key ingredients for your stir fry and ensure that they provide a balance of texture and flavour, for example:

• Umami – use chicken, tofu or mushrooms
• Crunch – scallions, snow peas or water chestnuts
• Sweet – carrot, corn or sweet potato
• Soft – rice or noodles

As well as considering the specific ingredients, you must also consider the preparation of each of these ingredients.

In stir fries, ingredients are typically sliced into chunks or julienned in long, thin strips. To get the best from your stir fry then consistency is key.

If one of your ingredients has been cut into thin strips, then the majority of the other ingredients should also be cut the same way. Not only will this ensure that all of the ingredients are cooked evenly, but it will also make the texture of the overall dish better.

How Do You Want the Protein to Taste?

Also consider how you want the protein to work in your dish. Say you are using chicken: would you rather thicker chunks of chicken that add a delicious tenderness, or thinner, julienned strips that can ensure you get a bit of chicken with every bite?!

Before you get cooking, it is also important to marinate your protein in a sauce, or with seasonings, to give it an incredible flavour and texture.

Cook Larger Ingredients Separately Beforehand

If your stir fry is including larger or harder ingredients, such as broccoli, that need a little longer to cook, then it can be an idea to par-cook them before adding them to your wok.

This will help to make everything more consistent within the dish and can ensure that other ingredients don’t get overcooked while you’re waiting for a bigger ingredient to cook.

This can also include meats, as sometimes it is necessary to sear the meat first to create a delicious texture, before finishing it off with the vegetables. This will also ensure the meat is not overcooked.

Pay Attention to Cooking Times

It’s not just the bigger ingredients you should worry about the cooking times for. Each ingredient is likely to have a specific time it needs to be cooked for to get the best results.

Ingredients such as beans, carrots and peppers may need to be dry-fried or blanched before use to ensure they are soft enough.

Delicate ingredients such as chives and bean sprouts will be ready in under a minute, so these should be added to the wok last, just before the dish is ready to serve.

Don’t Overfill the Wok

Having too many ingredients in the wok can cause them to pile up, with the ones on top cooling down too much. Instead of frying them, an overfilled wok will instead cause more of a boiled stew-like effect. Be sure not to fill the wok more than a third of the way full at the absolute most.

Stir frying requires high heats, so you need to use an oil that is able to withstand these high temperatures without burning or smoking, as this is likely to ruin the flavour of the whole dish.

While olive and coconut oils are popular as healthier frying oils, they are not great for stir frying as they have a lower smoke point. Instead, use vegetable oil or avocado oil, which can handle higher heat levels.

Stir Frying Technique

1. The cooking process should be speedy, taking no more than five minutes to complete, so make sure you have all ingredients ready to hand to be added in quickly when needed.
2. Make sure the wok is clean and dry before you begin.
3. Heat the wok until it begins to smoke. Only then should you add the oil, spinning the pan to ensure it is fully coated.
4. Add in the sauces, spices and seasonings; the fragrants (e.g. garlic, ginger) should be added first to infuse the oil.
5. Keeping the wok on a high temperature, add in the ingredients in the order of time it takes to cook them.
6. As you add ingredients, stir them or flip the wok backwards and forwards quickly to make sure the ingredients don’t stick or burn.
7. Once you have cooked an ingredient, push it to the back of the wok away from the heat and add a splash more oil before you add in the next ingredients to be cooked.
8. Stir fry all ingredients together, adding in things like noodles and chives towards the end.
9. When ready, serve and eat straight away as it will taste best when fresh.

If you would like to try making the perfect stir fry at home then, make sure you have all the right sauces, seasonings and ingredients to get the flavours just right! Check out the range of stir fry staple ingredients available at our Chinese supermarket online to help you get started!