In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef Eric Huang demonstrates how to make the best stir fries at home. You’ll never make soggy or burnt meat or veg again after following Huang’s pro tips for achieving a restaurant-quality stir fry.
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00:00Hi, I'm Eric Huang, I'm a professional chef,
00:02and today I'm gonna show you how to stir-fry
00:04everything in the universe.
00:06Stir-frying is all about balance, heat, movement, and timing.
00:10You're going to get restaurant-quality, delicious food
00:13on your plate in really little time.
00:15This is Stir-Frying 101.
00:18So it's helpful to understand a little bit
00:20about why stir-frying is a thing.
00:22So usually you cook stir-fries in a wok,
00:24which is a very thin piece of metal,
00:25and it's meant to be cooked very quickly.
00:27This developed in China because it was,
00:29historically not very rich in combustible fuel,
00:31so things were meant to cook quickly.
00:33Stir-frying is a prime example of that.
00:34Everything is cut into thin, small, bite-sized pieces.
00:37It's very economical, it's very versatile.
00:39You cook it up real fast,
00:40have it on the dinner table by 515.
00:42The whole point is bringing all the seasoning together
00:44in the pan at the last moment
00:45and eating it really hot right out of the pan.
00:48So hot, usually with rice.
00:50We're gonna cover three basic techniques for stir-frying.
00:52We're gonna do with a sauce, dry,
00:54and green vegetable cookery.
00:56There are many schools of cooking,
00:57but with these three, you can cover a huge wide base
01:00and use pretty much everything left over in your fridge.
01:05Stir-frying with sauce.
01:07It's a really nice way to add lusciousness,
01:10viscosity, moisture to what you're cooking.
01:12Stir-frying with a sauce is probably what you're thinking of
01:15when we're stir-frying.
01:15It's probably the most popular technique
01:17when it comes to stir-frying.
01:18We're gonna start with one of my personal favorites,
01:21the almighty chicken and broccoli,
01:23a Chinese-American takeout classic.
01:25So when you're stir-frying with a sauce,
01:27the basic principles are the same as everything else,
01:28except at the very end.
01:30You're adding the sauce at the end,
01:31you're potentially thickening it a little bit
01:33with a starch slurry,
01:34and then you're tossing it all together
01:35because you don't want it to be runny or watery.
01:38You want this sauce that's clinging,
01:40but not claggy either.
01:41It requires a little bit of finesse.
01:43So when it actually comes to stir-frying,
01:45the cooking part is really only a few minutes.
01:47All the work comes in the preparation.
01:49So we're gonna start with a very important technique
01:51for preparing proteins for stir-fries.
01:54We're gonna do velveting.
01:55As its name implies,
01:57velveting is about creating a very smooth texture
02:00with your proteins.
02:00Velveting is not something that's absolutely necessary,
02:04but it also kind of is.
02:06This is how you make really delicious stir-fries
02:08and get that wonderful texture.
02:10Let us velvet some chicken.
02:12Thinly sliced chicken breast here.
02:13We're gonna get that into the bowl,
02:15and then we're going to add our egg white, cornstarch,
02:19a little bit of baking soda, and salt.
02:21So all of these things are going to do something different
02:25to the chicken breast that is really important.
02:26The egg whites are slightly alkaline,
02:29and then we add a little bit of more alkalinity
02:31with the baking soda.
02:32It prevents the proteins from coagulating as tightly,
02:35so that helps with the tender texture.
02:37Step one, egg whites and the cornstarch
02:39are going to combine because the starch
02:41is going to distribute throughout the protein,
02:43which is gonna create kind of like a matrix
02:45or a lattice of starch.
02:46That helps the chicken hold on to its own juices,
02:48so that makes it juicy.
02:49That's number two.
02:50And then salt, you know,
02:52you need salt to make things taste good.
02:53And then you're going to work it,
02:54and then massage it, and really, really go for it.
02:57I'm gonna marinate.
02:58I'm gonna squish it around.
02:59I'm being pretty forceful,
03:00kind of breaking up a little bit of the protein structure.
03:02You're almost kind of like tenderizing it
03:04with your hand a little bit.
03:05And then you're really working that starch into it,
03:07the egg white, the baking soda, the salt.
03:09This is really what's gonna give you
03:11that nice texture later,
03:12that classic Chinese-American takeout texture,
03:14which I kind of describe as smooth, slippery, bouncy.
03:18Okay, so I've been doing this for about 45 seconds
03:21to a minute, so this is all marinated.
03:23I'm gonna let this sit for 30 minutes.
03:25We're ready to go here, and I'm going to make a sauce.
03:28So I'm making a really basic brown sauce.
03:30That is the foundation upon which
03:32Chinese-American restaurants will do
03:33400-item menus for you.
03:35It starts with this.
03:36We're just gonna make a really basic one,
03:37and it focuses on balancing the umami salty flavors
03:41in soy sauce and the sweetness coming from sugar.
03:44So for my brown sauce, we're gonna start with light soy sauce.
03:48Oyster sauce here, and this is gonna add a little bit
03:50of viscosity, sweetness, and more savoriness.
03:53Hoisin sauce, it's gonna add some sweetness,
03:55some color, viscosity.
03:57Next, ketchup.
03:58I think it's a perfect condiment.
03:59It's perfectly balanced between sweetness, acidity,
04:02and umami as well.
04:03Sugar, you can't just use soy sauce.
04:04You need a bit of sugar to balance it out.
04:06Bad Chinese takeout, poorly prepared jarred sauces.
04:09They're often too sweet, so it's worth the step
04:12of making your own brown sauce.
04:14I'm gonna add MSG.
04:15Do not be scared of MSG.
04:17It's perfectly safe, perfectly good for you.
04:18Makes all your things taste great.
04:20I'm gonna add cornstarch directly to the sauce.
04:23That way, you don't have to add it as a slurry later.
04:26Toasted sesame oil, it's very strong.
04:29It's very aromatic.
04:30You really just need a little bit.
04:31Garlic, just a single clove, nice and grated.
04:34When you grate garlic, the more finely you cut it,
04:36and the more intense is flavored.
04:37I'm gonna whisk everything together.
04:38It looks a little cloudy and perhaps light
04:40because the cornstarch has been distributed.
04:42That's going to clarify once you cook it.
04:44So we're still in our preparation phase,
04:46because again, the stir fry is going to come together
04:48in really just a minute or two.
04:50So, cooking the broccoli first.
04:52Broccoli, given its shape and its rigidity,
04:56needs to be cooked ahead of time.
04:58It will not cook in time in the final stir frying steps
05:01without turning into mush.
05:03So, I like to par cook it, and that way,
05:06we only need to stir fry it for just about a minute or two
05:09to finish it with the sauce and the protein.
05:11I like to test it by fishing one out and pinching the stem.
05:13If it feels like it's just about to break,
05:15that means it's pretty much ready to go.
05:16So, this is my marinated chicken, and I'm going to cook it.
05:20I'm going to do what's called a pass-through.
05:22In a Chinese restaurant, you would take this velvety chicken,
05:25and you would either cook it in stock or water or oil.
05:29You could fry it very quickly.
05:30It all depends on, obviously, how you want to do it.
05:33Most people don't have a pot of hot oil
05:35sitting around their home, though,
05:36so I think water's the way to do it.
05:38And you've already blanched broccoli,
05:39so why not just blanch the chicken in there?
05:42Gonna mix this up slightly,
05:43and then I'm gonna try to keep these separate.
05:45And we're really looking to just cook
05:47for about 30 to 45 seconds here.
05:49This step for velveting with either oil or water is crucial.
05:53Because these pieces are so thin,
05:55they cook very quickly, and that's all I'm trying to do.
05:57I'm just trying to cook it, set the protein,
05:59and get it ready for the stir-fry stage.
06:02Look at all our mise en place.
06:03We are well prepared.
06:04This allows us to bring our stir-fry together very quickly.
06:08I'll be cooking this dish with a wok.
06:09I really like woks because they retain heat very well,
06:12so when you add stir-fry products to it,
06:14you can maintain that high heat throughout,
06:17which is a really important flavor to Chinese stir-fry.
06:19Okay, I've been letting this preheat,
06:21and we're going to be cooking over high heat
06:22for about a minute,
06:24and you're going to see it start smoking slightly.
06:27That's the oil that has been seasoning the pan,
06:29getting to its smoke point.
06:30I'm going to use some neutral oil, high smoke point,
06:33and I'm going in with my chicken and broccoli.
06:38Just stir-fry very quickly,
06:40and then I'm gonna add my sauce.
06:43I'm gonna add it around the rim.
06:44This way, it kind of has a second
06:46to reduce and caramelize really quickly.
06:49Wave-like motion, up and down.
06:51You're cradling the sauce, and it's reducing
06:53against the edges just slightly, coating everything.
06:55I'm tilting forward and backwards.
06:57I'm rocking the motion,
06:58so it's cradling against the bowl of the wok,
07:01and that's pretty much ready to go.
07:04You might need a little bit of water
07:05just to adjust the viscosity,
07:07but I'm happy with that.
07:09And then I'm gonna go straight onto the plate.
07:12And that is chicken and broccoli in about 45 seconds.
07:16Because the cornstarch cooked very quickly
07:18and thickened the sauce,
07:19we have the perfect viscosity here.
07:20So it's not running.
07:22And when I tilt the plate, it's very slow to move,
07:24and it's clinging to all the crevices in the broccoli
07:28and the chicken really nicely.
07:29So get yourself a bowl of white rice.
07:31I need that.
07:32All right, let's see.
07:34So hot.
07:37Nice.
07:38The texture of the chicken's nice.
07:39It's not overly sweet.
07:40It's just sweet enough where the soy sauce isn't overpowering.
07:42You need the sugar to kind of balance it,
07:44and I really like that.
07:46And that's how you stir fry something with a sauce,
07:49a saucy stir fry.
07:54A great example of dry stir fries are dry fried string beans.
07:58What we mean by dry is that there isn't a sauce.
08:01In saucy stir fries, the flavor comes from the sauce.
08:04In dry stir fries, you're getting flavors from the high heat,
08:07aromatic vegetables, animal fat, and light seasoning.
08:10So they're really enjoyable when done correctly.
08:13So here we're gonna do dry fried string beans.
08:15I think that's a Chinese restaurant classic.
08:17I really enjoy it.
08:18It's a really different way from approaching
08:20green vegetables in Western cooking,
08:22which are usually blanched and glazed in butter.
08:23These we're going to cook at extremely high heat
08:26and toss with aromatic vegetables and a little bit of animal fat,
08:28and it makes for a really flavorful vegetable dish.
08:31So I have my string beans.
08:33They have been topped and tailed.
08:34I'm going to coat them with a little bit
08:36of neutral vegetable oil, a little bit of salt,
08:39and then we're just going to toss, toss, toss, just lightly coat them.
08:43I'm going to arrange these in a single layer as best I can.
08:46Part of the prep is the par cooking.
08:48We're going to cook these string beans about 50% of the way
08:51under the broiler, and then we're going to finish them in the pan.
08:53Okay, so my string beans have come out of the broiler.
08:56You see they're a little wrinkly, a little bit charred.
08:58You're trying to drive off a little bit of that initial moisture.
09:02If you did this from raw in the pan, there would be too much water content.
09:06It would steam. It would turn to mush.
09:08This step is really important because like all the stir-frying we're doing,
09:11you're really only in the pan for about a minute.
09:13Stir-frying is usually done in a wok, but it doesn't have to be.
09:15You can do a saute pan, a nonstick, a high-sided saute like this.
09:18The key is getting it hot enough.
09:20The key is something that you can manipulate with ease and comfort
09:23because you need to be able to cook quickly.
09:24So I have my mise en place here.
09:26As you will notice, there is pretty much nothing wet, hence why this is a dry stir-fry.
09:31With a soft stir-fry, all the flavors are in the sauce that you built ahead of time.
09:35With a dry stir-fry, we're building the layers of flavor.
09:38We're going to heat this up here, add a nice amount of oil.
09:40I'm going to add my chilies.
09:42I'm going to add Sichuan peppercorn.
09:43I'm going to just toast those for a second.
09:46It's not a blow-your-face-off kind of heat.
09:49Sichuan peppercorns are really floral.
09:51They're delightful, citrusy.
09:53Adding my ground pork.
09:54A little bit of that saturated fat from the rendering out of the pork fat is really, really nice.
09:59All right, just cooking that out.
10:02A little bit of fire, always fun.
10:04Scrape that up.
10:05Okay, moving that off the heat for a second.
10:08Garlic, ginger, a little bit of preserved mustard green.
10:12I'm just moving it around, manipulating the heat just by moving the pan.
10:17All right, and then once all these flavors are built,
10:19move it off the pan again.
10:21Going in with my dried string beans, salt, a little bit of sugar, MSG.
10:27Maybe another 15 seconds.
10:29Let's add a little bit of wine.
10:31I'm adding scallions.
10:33Just cooking those for a couple seconds.
10:36So I'm tossing it.
10:37Even though this is not a wok, this tossing motion is coating everything,
10:40getting the aromatics evenly distributed.
10:42And then we don't want to overcook these.
10:44That's pretty much it.
10:45We're going to go to the plate.
10:48Stir-fried food, you've got to be eaten immediately.
10:50It's got to be ripping hot, almost dangerously hot.
10:55This is awesome.
10:56I mean, you could do this with anything.
10:57You could do it with broccoli.
10:58You could do it with asparagus.
11:00You can prepare proteins this way.
11:01It's a really versatile and delicious way to make something out of very ordinary ingredients.
11:07Once you learn the basics, dry stir fries are a wonderful tool in your arsenal.
11:11So for our third chapter, we're going to be talking about cooking greens.
11:18Anytime you go to a Chinatown market, you're going to notice tons of vegetables,
11:21tons of green and leafy vegetables.
11:22And this is pretty much a way of how to cook all of them.
11:25They're all incredibly delicious once you unlock this technique.
11:28So this kind of stir frying, what changes is the base ingredient.
11:32What kind of leafy vegetable are you using?
11:34The base layer technique does not change.
11:36It's always garlic, some sort of chicken stock or chicken powder, a salt and oil.
11:41And then you're stir frying it all together.
11:43I have Shanghai bok choy here.
11:44This is kind of like a medium size.
11:46I have some boiling water here.
11:47I'm going to add some salt to it, season it.
11:49And just like in the other steps, we're par cooking here.
11:51The stir fry step is very quick.
11:53It's very short, maybe a minute or two.
11:55So I'm obviously bok choy has the leafy green part and the stem part.
11:58They're supposed to be contrasting textures.
12:00So the stem is just tender.
12:01Nice.
12:02All right.
12:02My bok choy is just lightly cooked here.
12:04And yet again, I have a walk in front of me.
12:06We're going to stir fry our green vegetables here.
12:09We're going to do a technique called
12:10which means clear stir fry.
12:13It's very simple.
12:14It's salt, garlic, oil, and chicken bouillon powder.
12:18In a perfect universe, you would have inherited your grandmother's
12:2150-year master Cantonese stock that has had millions of chickens cooked in it.
12:26We're just going to use chicken bouillon powder.
12:27It adds umami.
12:28That's the really key difference towards what makes it great.
12:30All right.
12:30I'm going to add some neutral oil here.
12:33So I'm going to add my garlic and we're just going to let it gently brown.
12:37The hottest part of the wok is at the bottom.
12:39So you just kind of want to keep it swirling.
12:42Otherwise, it's going to burn.
12:43I'm going to go in with my bok choy.
12:48Splash of water.
12:49It's going to help kind of finish the steaming a little bit.
12:53Salt.
12:56You're not looking to brown anything or char anything.
12:59I'm going to add my chicken powder.
13:01Just a touch of sugar.
13:02Really not a lot.
13:03Just to balance the salinity a little bit.
13:05The vegetable is going to start to become translucent,
13:07look a little shiny.
13:08The water is controlling the temperature of the wok
13:10so that your garlic doesn't burn.
13:12And that's it.
13:12It should look glossy, delicious, shiny.
13:15Going to go to the plate.
13:19Okay.
13:20And then you got to get all this garlic and that little bit of stock over it.
13:24Makes it eat nice and juicy.
13:26That's really it.
13:26So easy.
13:27Just a little bit of knife work.
13:28Preparation.
13:29Blanching it ahead of time.
13:31This is going to be really, really delicious.
13:34That was delicious.
13:35The stem still has texture.
13:36The leaves are really tender and slippery.
13:39So that's really a simple basic foundation technique.
13:42Garlic.
13:43Some sort of MSG chicken bouillon powder.
13:45Salt and oil.
13:46And you can cook any vegetable and really, really up its game.
13:52So I showed you three basic categories of stir frying here,
13:56but there is a multitude of techniques.
13:58So with these three core basic principles,
14:00you can stir fry pretty much everything and anything.
14:03Start with leftovers.
14:04Some vegetables you're trying to use up,
14:06and I promise it's a whole deep universe to explore.
14:09So I wish you the best of luck in all your stir fry.
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14:27See you guys who have the best in the world.
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