You basically end up with boiled watery stew, braised or steamed dishes That's my stir fry exactly! Thanks for the tips.

Of course I thought your post was directed at me anyway but for a different reason.

Great tips DC. I make stir fry almost once a week. Mine is usually "too wet" but I'm a lazy food preparer in general. Sometimes I get it right but not very often.

Kathy - that same thought crossed my mind! But I thought you had a legitmate question in that other thread. :-) I stayed out of that one just to prove a point.

"Keep the pan/wok smoking hot before you add the ingredients."

I will reserve the term "smoking hot" to describe the guy I met running yesterday. He is taking me out to dinner tonite. I would not normally agree to going out with someone I just met. But as I said he is smoking hot and I needed a pick me up after my boss died earlier this week. I am going to miss her terribly.

Now - I have to figure out where to go for dinner. Piccolo.....SpoonRiver.......we have so many good restaurants here in Minneapolis.

Teresa

The Maillard reaction and caramelization are not the same...Maillard reaction can occur at any temperature from room temperature to much higher. Much m ore compex than simply cooking the water out of certain sugars.
Linda C

WOW !!!

I'll have to Google " Maillard reaction " too .

But I don-t think I can add anything to the,
Dcarch Post.
He seems to have it all covered, without a lid.

Teresa:
I would have picked you up !!! but I am not smoking hot.

LOU

I like your definition of "Smoking Hot" Teresa!!!!!
High 5 to you!!!!

I'm doing a stir-fry tonite, but using frozen Thai veggies (had a $2 off coupon, so thought I'd try them). I guess they'll have to be patted dry, and I'll have to tie my hands behind my back to resist the insatiable urge to stir!

Posted by mustangs "-------- Of course I thought your post was directed at me anyway but for a different reason."

I would not dare direct my post at anyone. I am always guilty of bring my own snacks to movie theaters. That's tackier than the movie theaters' chewing gum covered underside of seats. :-)

Posted by lpinkmountain "Great tips DC. I make stir fry almost once a week. Mine is usually "too wet" but I'm a lazy food preparer in general. Sometimes I get it right but not very often."

I had stir fried veggies tonight. Using this method, I on purpose did not dry the veggies after washing. Still worked very well.

Posted by teresa_mn "-------I will reserve the term "smoking hot" to describe the guy I met running yesterday. --------- But as I said he is smoking hot and I needed a pick me up after my boss died earlier this week. I am going to miss her terribly.------"
I am hot, but I am a non-smoker. I guess we are not going out for dinner :-).

Very sorry to hear about your boss.

Posted by lindac "The Maillard reaction and caramelization are not the same...Maillard reaction can occur at any temperature from room temperature to much higher. Much m ore compex than simply cooking the water out of certain sugars.
Linda C"

Of course you are right.

For the purpose of this post, I decided not to go into too much in those terms. Basically I just lump all non-enzymatic browning into one category. I essentially took some simple paragraphs from WiKi:

As far as cooking is concerned, "--- low moisture levels are necessary mainly because water boils into steam at 212 F (100 C), whereas the Maillard reaction happens noticeably around 310 F (154 C):--"

Caramelization is browning, Maillard reaction is sometimes kown as Browning reaction.

If I were to discuss sous vide cooking, I will definitely go into much more details into browning topics. It is very critical for sous vide cooking.

Posted by hawk307 "WOW !!! I'll have to Google " Maillard reaction " too .
But I don-t think I can add anything to the, Dcarch Post.
He seems to have it all covered, without a lid.
Teresa:
I would have picked you up !!! but I am not smoking hot.
LOU"

Lou, you are too funny! LOL.

Posted by jasdip "------- I'm doing a stir-fry tonite, but using frozen Thai veggies (had a $2 off coupon, so thought I'd try them). I guess they'll have to be patted dry, and I'll have to tie my hands behind my back to resist the insatiable urge to stir! "

I am not sure where "Stir Fry" came from, I was told by an old-timer, "stir" is never mentioned in Chinese. Good luck with your meal.

dcarch

I have a hard time reaching the perfect balance point of heat between smoking hot and burning. I've spent far too much time cleaning scorched woks.

When you say "Keep the pan/wok smoking hot before you add the ingredients." does that include the oil? In other words do you add your oil to a cold or a hot wok?

Lee

Lee, most of the time I use chopped garlic for stir frying. When the garlic starts to brown in a few table spoons of oil, that's when I put other ingredients in.

Other times I heat up the oil to actually when it starts to smoke a little. It is not that difficult to tell.

Another tip: Don't salt first. Salt after cooking will avoid osmosis extracting water out from your food.

dcarch

"...the food will be burned, but that is not much of a worry in a home kitchen." Obviously, you haven't been to my kitchen! But, that happens most when I use the broiler.

I haven't tried stir frying much at all. We were given a wok years ago, maybe as a wedding present, so it was a very long time ago. It's covered with dust somewhere. I should clean it up and give it a try again.

What kind of oil do you use?

Sally

I have not done a stir fry recently but I think one may be in order today. I had a lovely dinner at Lola's on Lake Waconia last night. We shared a lobster puff pastry pie and rare prime rib and alot of wine. And now I am reminded why I don't usually eat after 4pm.

I am not sure where "Stir Fry" came from, I was told by an old-timer, "stir" is never mentioned in Chinese.

dcarch - If they don't actually use a word that means "stir", then I'm thinking maybe it's implied? Try your own trick of using google translate to translate to Chinese, look up some recipes in Chinese then translate them back. Plenty of references to stir frying.

In the acclaimed book "The Breath of a Wok", Grace Young makes a clear distinction between stir frying and pan frying, the former meaning keeping the ingredients in constant motion and the latter meaning let fry undisturbed. For stir-frying she gives the conventional warnings: ingredients must be dry, and in order to keep the wok hot enough limit the amount you try to fry at once.

And yes, her book is directed at the home cook. She references her own 14K BTU Kitchenaid - pretty low power by today's standards.

It would seem to me the wok would be a terribly inefficient tool for a home cook if not primarily for stir frying. There's a relatively small area that's at its hottest point.

Oy vey, I put too much stuff in my stir fry pan too. I know for the best stir fry you do each ingredient separately, so they can be taken out at their peak flavor times. But lately I just use those frozen mixes and they are wet too. But I can get an edible dinner on the table when I am exhausted, in 20 min. using instant brown rice.

Actually I have to somewhat correct myself - in another section of the book I see where she says for meat and poultry you should spread it out, let it sear for 20 seconds to a minute, stir-fry, spread out and let sear for about 15 seconds, then continue to stir-fry. Now I have to again find where she said constant motion!

IIRC correctly this isn't the first time I've found found slight inconsistencies in the book. Maybe I should read it start to finish before quoting it!

But really my point was not to dispute the technique you suggested, but rather to discuss the term "stir fry."

FOAS, a few things I have found on the WEB:

"------ picture the curve of the wok, with its rounded bottom and sloping sides. What distinguishes it in design also distinguishes it in function. Both the concave shape and material of the wok allow heat to distribute evenly and prevent the formation of hot spots,--- which cause food to stick and burn. -------- When nestled in the flames of a fire, the sloping sides distribute heat evenly among the food being cooked. The technique of pushing food away from the center and up the sloping edges regulates heat distribution and allows cooking to alternate between higher and lower temperatures, which ultimately gives the chef more control.---"

" ------- is its curved concave shape. The shape produces a small, hot area at the bottom which allows some of the food to be seared by intense heat while using relatively little fuel. The large sloped sides also make it easier for chefs to employ the tossing cooking technique on solid and thick liquid food with less spillage and a greater margin of safety. Curved sides also allows a person to cook without having to "chase the food around the pan" since bite-sized or finely chopped stir-fry ingredients usually tumble back to the center of the wok when agitated.--------"

"----The curve also provides a larger usable cooking surface versus western-styled pots and pans, which typically have vertical edges. This allows large pieces of food seared at the bottom of the wok to be pushed up the gently sloped sides to continue cooking at a slower rate. While this occurs another ingredient for the same dish needing high heat is being cooked at the bottom. The pointed bottom also allows even small amounts of oil to pool. As such, large food items can be shallow fried, while finely chopped garlic, hot peppers, green onions, and ginger can be essentially deep-fried in both cases with very small amount of cooking oil.[1]---"

Regarding "stir" in stir frying, Here is what I have learned from a few Chinese chefs. There are four kinds of frying:

Chao - As in chow main, and fry rice and typical "stir" frying food.
Jean - shallow frying in wok. Almost like sautee-ing.
Jaa (bomb frying) - deep frying.
Bao (explosive frying) - Very high heat frying with not much oil

None of the chefs are familiar with the word "stir". As a matter of fact, they probably do more tossing then stirring when cooking. Unlike whipped cream, whipping is essential to the making of whipped cream, and scramble eggs, scrambling is part of scrambled eggs. Stirring does not have anything to do with stir fried recipes. Almost all cooking involves some degree of stirring.

dcarch

Picture taken from the WEB site of "Mordernist Cruisine" showing pattern of heat distruibution of a wok.

{{gwi:1519193}}

Sally, I use all kinds of oil in stir frying, except olive oil. Traditional Chinese cooking also uses a lot of pork fat, which I don't use.

dcarch

Toss, stir, seems to me that's just semantics. Of course we're not talking about a motion like stirring oatmeal.

Your first quote could be read as being inconsistent as well. First it says the wok will "allow heat to distribute evenly and prevent the formation of hot spots" and "the sloping sides distribute heat evenly among the food being cooked", but then "pushing food away from the center and up the sloping edges regulates heat distribution and allows cooking to alternate between higher and lower temperatures." So which is it? Even heat distribution or a hot bottom and gradually cooler sides? The rest of the quotes and the picture would support that latter.

So if we can agree on the latter, it would seem we need a lot of movement to get even results. And if the home range isn't powerful enough to give a proper sear with this method, then a wok is a poor choice for the home, wouldn't you say? Wouldn't you be better off spreading out the food on an evenly heated flat pan? And now we can call it sauteeing. Is that term used in Chinese? ;-)

Actually that tossing motion used when stir frying ( as you said not like stirring oatmeal or pudding) is more like traditional sauteeing...the origin of the word sautee comes from French for "jump"...presumably from that tossing motion one makes with a sautee pan.
So sauteeing and stir frying are essentially tossing food around in a hot pan.

Linda C

So, how do you toss food in a big heavy pan like a wok?

Sally

I use 2 wooden spatulas to toss in a wok.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wok utensils

"Toss, stir, seems to me that's just semantics. Of course we're not talking about a motion like stirring oatmeal. "

Actually not exactly. Stirring is moving ingredients around a pan for a better mixing of ingredients and to even out cooking, while tossing is to flip all ingredients upside-down to brown the opposite side.

"Your first quote could be read as being inconsistent as well. First it says the wok will "allow heat to distribute evenly and prevent the formation of hot spots" and "the sloping sides distribute heat evenly among the food being cooked",

That explanation is not a thorough explanation. If you look at the cut-away photo I posted of a wok on a stove, you will understand better what is going on. The quote should have said the design of the wok allows GRADUATED temperature evenly spread out from the hot center to the colder edge of the wok. This is an important feature of the wok. It allows the following:

a. It allows the chef to perfectly control temperature for each of the ingredients.
b. The round shape of the bottom also allows the wok to be tilted to shift the hot center to other areas.

"---So if we can agree on the latter, it would seem we need a lot of movement to get even results. And if the home range isn't powerful enough to give a proper sear with this method, then a wok is a poor choice for the home, wouldn't you say? ----"

Based on the above and the Chinese style of cooking, uniform heat distribution is not required or desired.
"----Wouldn't you be better off spreading out the food on an evenly heated flat pan? And now we can call it sauteing. Is that term used in Chinese? ;-)"

I saw on TV sometime ago Jacques Pippin was cooking something. He mentioned that sauteing actually came from stir frying. I have not tried to verify that information. In a wok, you can fry food in oil and then push the food to the side to drain off most of the oil. Great for making crispy bacon, something you cannot do with a flat pan. You will be soaking you food in oil, fat or butter. The shape allows cooking very small quantity to very large quantity. There is a round grill attachment that goes on the wok for deep frying. It drains the oil right into the wok. This works much better than draining oil on paper towels because oil flow much easier when hot on top of a wok.

A wok's unique geometry lends itself to many other interesting uses. The Chinese use it for steaming, boiling, deep frying, smoking, etc.

dcarch

Interesting points, which I'll re-read. I've been wondering all day - what kind of home-made wok burner has dcarch thrown together?

Okay. For tossing, I was picturing the way the chefs on tv sautee by flipping the pan up and down to make the food jump. I just couldn't see doing that with a wok.

Sally

Sally,

A wok is not that heavy. It is very doable to toss/flip food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikjzdAMkWys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNaiCF5fmM4

dcarch

LOL, that second video was the worst thing I've ever seen.

SHOW ME YOUR WOK BURNER, DCARCH!!! C'mon, I know you've got one!

"---SHOW ME YOUR WOK BURNER, DCARCH!!! C'mon, I know you've got one! "

Nope. I just have a very ordinary gas range with regular burners.

I have not found it neccesary to get one of those jet engine blast furnace to do a respectable stir fry.

dcarch