Wok and stir-frying

Why

In stir-frying, small pieces are fried for just a few minutes on very hot metal and kept moving, so the surface browns and the inside cooks through before it dries out. A home hob, however, delivers far less heat than a restaurant burner: if you add too much cold or wet food to the wok, the metal cools, juices run out of the food and it stews in them, grey and limp, just like meat in an overcrowded pan (see the Searing meat card). That is why meat and vegetables are stir-fried in smaller batches, the meat is set aside and only returned at the end, and everything has to be cut and measured beforehand – the dish is done before you could find the sauce. The shape of the wok helps: the bottom is hottest and the high sides let you toss the pieces without them falling out; on a flat hob or induction, a flat-bottomed wok or a large frying pan will do.

How to do it

• Cut everything into equally small pieces, the meat across the grain into thin strips (see the Slicing meat against the grain card), and mix the sauce beforehand.
• Dry washed vegetables well; don't wash the meat, just pat it dry with kitchen paper; water cools the wok and makes the oil spatter.
• Heat a carbon-steel wok dry until it smokes; never heat a non-stick one empty, add the oil straight away. Use an oil with a high smoke point, such as refined peanut or rapeseed oil.
• Stir-fry meat in batches of up to about 350 g, leave it to sit briefly so it browns, then toss; set it aside when done, and cook chicken to 74 °C (see the Internal temperature of meat card).
• Then add hard vegetables, then soft ones, with garlic and ginger alongside them or only at the end so they don't brown; return the meat, add the sauce and a dash of sesame oil if you like.
• Tip the finished dish straight onto a plate; in the wok it would keep cooking and the vegetables would go soft.

If it goes wrong

If the food has released its juices and is stewing, lift it out with a slotted spoon, boil the liquid down hard in the wok and return the food so it gets coated; next time stir-fry in smaller batches. Tough meat was overcooked, cut along the grain or in thick pieces – cut it smaller and stir it into the sauce. Burnt garlic can't be saved (see the Garlic in the pan card). If the oil in the wok catches fire, cover it with a lid, switch off the hob and never use water.