How to do it right: a lesson in stir-frying

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the food lovers of online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat and what to cook. This time our chefs serve you: the tips for stir-frying.

Not in the mood to spend hours in the kitchen? Grab that wok, and you'll whip up a stir-fry dish in no time. Meat or fish, vegetables, sauce, and rice (or noodles) and your dish is ready. But how do you do it really well?

Sure, you can throw everything in a pan, wait until it's cooked, and hope it tastes good. But those who train their wok skills a bit will soon be rewarded with magically delicious dishes.

Step 1: be prepared
Heat the wok on the fire before you start preparing your dish. Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature and chopped, in other words: ready to be cooked. You stir-fry the dish over high heat, so you won't have time for chopping later. Moreover, cold vegetables in a too lukewarm pan will make everything soggy.

Step 2: swirl
Is the wok hot? Spread the oil in a swirling circle over the entire wok. This way, the edges of the wok are also coated with oil.

SStep 3: frying meat
Make sure the meat is already out of the fridge and at room temperature, and use high heat for searing it, so most of the juices stay in the meat and it becomes tender. Is your meat almost cooked? Remove it from the wok and add it back later with the rest of the ingredients. This way, the meat warms up again and stays tender.

Step 4: stir-frying vegetables
Don't add all your ingredients at once to the wok, but do it in smaller portions. Too much at once will cool down the wok. This way, your dish won't get the delicious stir-fried flavor that they call ‘wok hay’ in China. We mentioned it earlier: make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature, that also prevents a lot of trouble.

Step 5: frying rice
For making fried rice, make sure to use a spatula to scrape the bottom continuously. This way, no rice sticks, and it won't burn on the bottom either.

Step 7: sauce
Do you see the sauce burning on the sides while stir-frying? Then use your spatula or tilt the wok so that the liquid sauce touches the sides of the wok. If there isn't enough sauce to do this, add some wine, water, or broth.

Also, be a little kind to that wok: this is how you maintain it. Love Chinese cuisine? Here you can read about everything you need to cook Chinese. Need some extra stir-fry tips? Then read this article.

Text: FavorFlav