What are some stir fry techniques and advice?

Question

What temperatures should be used without burning the food and inducing "wok hei", how temperatures should be adjusted, what type of fuel source is the best, which order to add certain food items, how to do that cool toss thing that professionals do, when to add seasonings and sauces at the right times, do's and don'ts, what types of oils work the best, etc

Stir fries ask for high heat, but how high should the heat be before you burn your food? Whenever I make stirfries with super high heat, instead of cooking food really fast and giving me food with wok hei, I get burnt charred black stuff. All the experts say you should have INDUSTRIAL strength burners in order to have the best stir fry, but why would they ask for even higher heat when anything that high would just end up burning the food? Does it have more to do with RETAINING heat rather than how high the temperature is?

Is tossing necessary in stir fries? Does it lend to some sort of flavor or occurrence?

Answer 1

The key to getting the flavor from using a wok, wok hei, is to use high heat. The high heat cooks the food quickly, but also adds the smokey, char flavor you get from Chinese foods cooked in restaurants.

In a restaurant, the woks sit over high thermal output burners. When the burners are running, it sounds like a jet engine spooling up to speed.

1. Have your ingredients ready
2. You need a seasoned wok.
3. On your home burner, turn it to high and let the wok heat up hot.
4. Add 2 tablespoons of oil to the wok (vegetable, corn, peanut are all good) the oils should smoke a little.
5. add your garlic, ginger and toss in the meat.
6. Cook the meat about 3 minutes and take out.
7. Add the veggies and stir fry..
8. My lazy step.. I add the sauce ingredients to the meat and toss it all back into the wok with the veggies.
9. cover for a minute or two to let it finish cooking.

A dish that would take about 5 minutes in a restaurant will take about 10 minutes to finish at home since the wok can't maintain the heat so the food kind of steams. However, if you started out with a hot wok, you should have decent wok hei.

In terms of burning stuff, you just need to keep the food moving with the wok chan - spatula.

The flip thing is done by lifting the wok and tilting down so the food starts sliding away from you. Next, you flick your wrist up so the food goes straight up. When you get more experience, you will be able to flick your wrist up and slightly towards you so the food goes up and arcs back towards you and lands about 3" back from where it started. Just start small... at the beginning the food may continue going forward and get tossed in front of your wok and onto your burners. Once you've got the food going straight up consistently... you'll be able to flip it back.

**** Additional comments *****
The burnt black stuff? is that coming off of the wok? Does your wok have a non-stick coating on it? or is the burnt black stuff the food burning?

At home, I just turn my gas stove onto it's highest setting.
When hot, I add oil to coat the bottom and some of the side of the wok, where I think the food will touch.

As to burning stuff... I've never had any problems burning stuff. you are stirring stuff around, right?

The only time I had black flecks in my food was when I bought a wok with a non-stick coating. The heat caused the coating to come off. I ended up taking a steel wool scouring pad and scrubbed that non-stick coating off and converted it to a regular steel wok.

Assuming your wok is "seasoned" properly.
I would suggest using more oil so the food doesn't stick and/or lowering the heat.

**** additional comments ***
tossing is not needed... it is a quick way of mixing stuff around versus moving it around with the wok spatula.

According to wikipedia, you need the wok to be at 400F and use large amounts of oil. Hmmm.... I don't know what is considered large amounts... I'm guessing about 2 to 3 tablespoons of oil. There should be about 1 or 2 teaspoons pooling at the bottom after you swished the oil around the wok about 4 to 5" up the side.

Answer 2

keep the wok moving...... stir constantly.

Answer 3

first fry and then stir and go get some wood the fire is getting low..

Answer 4

how about take out