Five Stir Frying Tips and Sauce

Today, I want to talk about stir frying with a wok. I use this method a lot. It's usually not too difficult to put together a nice, quick dish from what I have sitting in the refrigerator. With a reliable sauce (recipe at the end of this post) to tie the dish together, it's a sure winner. Pictured below is a delicious dish of tofu, shiitake mushrooms, onion, napa cabbage, and green onion.

Here are my five best tips for using woks and stir frying a great dish. The sauce recipe is at the end.

Use a well-seasoned carbon steel wok. Woks are different from standard frying pans in two main ways. First, they are thinner. This means they heat up and cool off quicker, enabling the cook to control the heat on the fly. Second, a wok is deep. When stir frying, this means you can move things around in the pan without them flying out. This also makes woks versatile tools for other cooking methods, something that is often overlooked. The depth makes them ideal for deep frying or boiling. When I make chao mian, I usually boil the noodles right in the wok, dump the water, and then get on with the rest of the ingredients.

Seasoning the wok is important to reduce sticking. Every time you finish cooking, clean out any stuck debris immediately (I find that a Scrub Daddy is ideal for this task). Soak a paper towel with a little vegetable oil and rub it all over the wok.

Cook on high heat with plenty of oil. High heat is essential to achieving the unique flavor of stir frying. A gas flame is definitely preferable, and when weather permits, I often use the side burner on the grill. If you have to use an electric burner, which I often do, it can be difficult to maintain contact between the burner and the grill. A wok ring can help with this. 

Such high heat, even if the pan is well seasoned, can result in sticking. Add plenty of oil before adding the food, and swirl it around to coat. Don't be afraid to add more as needed. Sticking and burning is also mitigated by frequent tossing and stirring.

Cook ingredients separately, and then combine at the end. This is basically a corollary of the previous point. Proper stir frying is all about maintaining pan contact and dry heat on the food. Avoid the temptation to dump all your ingredients in at once. It's best if all the ingredients are able to brown properly rather than being cooked without contact. Adding a lot of water-retaining vegetables can result in a wet pan and prevent browning. I cook each vegetable (or sometimes two at a time) and then set them aside in the serving bowl. Once everything has been cooked, I combine them all back in the wok and then add sauce (see below).

Cut down on moisture as much as possible. Another good way to prevent water in the pan is to get rid of it ahead of time. Two of my favorite ingredients are tofu and cabbage. To dry out your tofu, lay out the tofu block on a cutting board, and place a paper towel on top. Put a plate or another small board on top of this, and then put something fairly heavy on top. Let this sit for a few minutes, and then flip it over and repeat. You don't want something so heavy that the tofu starts to fall apart, but you do want to see some compression. I used the stovetop espresso maker for two blocks of tofu today. After this, you can cut the tofu into blocks.

For cabbage, either regular green cabbage or napa, cut the cabbage into small pieces. In a bowl, combine the cabbage with plenty of salt and toss to coat. Let stand for about 20 minutes. Take handfuls of cabbage in a towel and wring out as much water as possible. The result is nice, crunchy cabbage that won't give off water in the pan.

Add sauce at the end. A good sauce will bring your whole dish together. Adding sauce is generally the last thing I do, other than throwing in some green onion. Again, this is because we need to keep things dry for browning. The recipe here is my standard sauce for stir frying. This sauce works well for a dish to be served with rice, or with stir fried noodles.

Stir Fry Sauce

• 1 Tbs cornstarch
• 1 Tbs bean sauce
• 1 tsp Chinese hot mustard
• 2 Tbs soy sauce
• 1 Tbs sherry or rice wine
• 1/2 cup chicken stock

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk together until cornstarch is dissolved. For a Sichuan-style sauce, replace the bean sauce with hot bean paste. This recipe makes just short of a cup of sauce.