<p>oregon101, Who made your wok and how often do you use it? (she asked enviously.)</p>
<p>I just realized that I described my woks a “cast iron.” They aren’t–they are probably carbon steel. Anyway, now they are all nicely blackened in the middle. I only have an electric cooktop, and I cook a lot of authentic Chinese, Thai, and Indian food, amongst others. Haven’t been able to afford to replace it, install propane, and remodel the kitchen. A bigger problem for me is the inadequacy of the vast majority of kitchen fans to cope with wok cooking.</p>
<p>Regarding stir frying chicken, Barbara Tropp would have you marinate it for a few hours at least, then “velvet” it. A typical marinade is one egg white, 1 Tbs of cornstarch, 1 tsp kosher salt, and 1 Tbs rice wine or dry sherry to 1 lb of boneless chicken breast, cut for stir fry. Velveting is blanching in 275F oil or boiling water for about 20 seconds, just before stir-frying the whole dish. Velveted chicken has a unique texture and absorbs very little oil in cooking.</p>
<p>She would have you velvet the chicken and set it aside. Then stir fry the vegetables until barely cooked–adding them in order of cooking time if necessary, then scrape out into a dish. Then heat the wok again until the drop of water dances, add a little peanut oil, toss in your aromatics (minced garlic, ginger, scallion, hot chili flakes or Chinese chili sauce), stir fry for a few seconds until aroma explodes, add chicken and stir fry briefly, then add vegetables and stir fry briefly, then add sauce ingredients (for example: 3 Tbs of hoisin mixed with 1 1/2 tsp rice wine or sherry and 2 tsp soy), stir fry to coat everything and you’re done.</p>
<p>You could do basically the same thing but use a bottled sauce. Just don’t drown it. I concur that Lee Kum Kee is a reliable, widely available brand, especially if you don’t have access to Asian markets or the interest in delving into really learning how to cook Chinese food “from scratch.”</p>
<p>1moremom–it is built into the gas stovetop by Thermador. I go through spurts. As I am vegetarian I don’t know how to do meat but do wok tofu. I have never found a good stir fry to be a quick meat as the prep is intensive if you begin with fresh food. That said, it is something you can have completely ready to go and waiting and then the wok time is very short.
I make someof my own sauces but my family really likes Kikoman stir fry sauce which I add at the very last 1/2 minute.
Years ago, in the 1970’s, when I first began stir fying I would cook each vegie seperately and take them out and put them in seperate bowls and then add them back together at the end–it worked well enough and that was what my cookbooks said to do.</p>
<p>Tonight I did NOT stir fry and the gang expressed disappointment. So I will take that as a sign that I’m on the right pathway.</p>
<p>My one good stir-fry seemed to have the quality of being very dry during the cooking, then moistened at the end by the sauce. I think that kept the vegetables a better textrure and charred the chicken a bit. </p>
<p>Regarding tofu: Many years ago we used to make the “Good Food” version of stir fried tofu in an electric skillet. It was actually quite delicious. As I recall, no fancy oils just a big dollop of peanut butter at some point. Lots of broccoli. It was great till this dinner devolved with a bad case of stomach flu for the family. Scars you, can’t go back to the recipe after that. Pretty sure it was the fast food chicken following the delicious beef and peanut butter stir-fry but impressions don’t budge on these experiences. Daughter ended up on an IV as I recall. Funny how those bad times fade from memory.</p>
<p>If there is liquid in the wok for any length of time (usually released from the veggies) the veggies end up steamed instead of stir fried. High heat will help minimize that. (A little char is not necessarily a bad thing. :))</p>
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Exactly. (10 char)</p>
<p>i never knew that the wok had to be heated before putting in the oil! So glad I saw this thread!!</p>
<p>You can get tofu in different consistencies, all the way from silken soft to regular extra firm. Maybe try a different tofu?</p>
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<p>Yes. You want the wok so hot that when you add the oil and you dump in minced garlic, you only have a second or two to dump in the first bowl of ingredient before the garlic is overcooked and the oil starts smoking. Very hot, very fast. The hotter the better.</p>
<p>The only exception is the very final step of adding the sauce. You generally want the sauce to boil quickly in the bottom of the wok (cornstartch mixture needs to be at boiling to thicken properly), but then turn the heat way down for the final toss and serve. Most sauces will burn into a nasty crust on the bottom of the wok if left over high heat.</p>
<p>I was recently watching a cooking show and the chef said she puts the garlic in after the onions begin so that there is a sweeter garlic flavor and it does not burn, I have started to do this.</p>
<p>I also do the garlic and ginger after the onion since I find I’m a lot less likely to burn the garlic yet still get that same burst of fragrance when I throw it into the wok.</p>
<p>As a bit of a side question, I had some rice the other week at a Vietnamese restaurant that was pretty unique. It felt like it was medium grained brown rice that had been chopped in half prior to cooking. It tasted like brown rice, but the texture in my mouth was much closer to cous cous. I tried throwing some uncooked brown rice into a food processor, but all I managed to do was chip off some small edges and make a little bit of rice powder. I don’t think they did anything after cooking it since that seems like it would just gunk up the blades. Is this some sort of cracked rice I’m not familiar with? (Or, alternatively, does anyone have any tricks to decrease the cooking time of brown rice?)</p>