Beef Onion Stir-fry: Quick Chinese Recipe - The Woks of Life (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret ingredient in stir-fry? ›

Ketchup Is The Secret Ingredient For A Top-Notch Stir Fry - Yahoo Sports.

In Chinese cooking, proteins like beef, pork or chicken are velveted first before stir-frying them. There are several ways to velvet, but at its most basic level, it involves marinating meat with at least one ingredient that will make it alkaline. This is what tenderizes the meat, especially cheaper, tougher cuts.

The first is to cook your protein and your vegetable separately, and combine them only after both are fully cooked. A second rule of thumb for stir-frying: Choose one vegetable per stir-fry. Finally, always remember to add liquid only after everything is more or less finished cooking.

Aromatic ingredients like garlic, ginger, green onions, chilies and spices. These ingredients are typically added to the oil first to infuse it with flavor. You won't need much; a few teaspoons to a tablespoon of total aromatic ingredients per person adds a serious amount of flavor.

Stir your ingredients often

Your ingredients should cook fast, but to ensure that everything is cooked evenly, stir constantly (hence the name). It's important to move the food in and out of the centre of the pan quickly.

This is how to tenderise beef with a Chinese restaurant method called “velveting beef”. Also used for chicken, it's a simple, highly effective technique using baking soda that transforms economical beef so it's incredibly tender in stir fries and stir fried noodles.

Sprinkle over 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and rub it into the meat with your hands. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Rinse the beef in cold water to remove the bicarb. Pat dry with paper towels and use as per your recipe.

Velveting chicken is a perfectly healthy meat preparation method since the core ingredients are cornstarch and oil, each of which is perfectly fine for you to eat. So, velveting can deliver delicious, tender meat without sacrificing quality when it comes to taste or health.

It brings out meat's natural flavors and also tenderizes it by breaking down myosin, a tough protein found in meat, just like in a good brine. Tenderized proteins also contract less during cooking, which means better moisture retention.

This creates a super tender texture of beef and make them less sticky during stir-frying process. The beef is so tender to believe. Adding the cold egg liquid can lower the heating of beef at once and thus make the beef further cooked with a lower temperature.

How do you make beef stir fry without it being chewy? ›

How to make beef stir fry tender? For tender beef stir fry, choose a lean cut like skirt steak or flank steak and slice it thinly against the grain. Velvet the beef by marinating it in a mixture of oil, starch, baking soda, and soy sauce for 15 minutes, then quickly pan sear it in a hot pan with oil.

So many different oils, the good news is you can stick with what you know – canola is great! The best oils for stir frys are the oils with the higher smoke points. These tend to be the “thinner” oils such as peanut, grapeseed or canola.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wok, then fry the chilli and garlic for 1 min. Add the veg and toss to coat in the oil. Fry for 2-3 mins, then add the soy and chilli sauce, mixing well. Cook for 2-3 mins more until the veg are tender.

Velvet the beef: The velveting technique involves tenderizing, marinating, and a quick searing of the meat. To tenderize: Sprinkle with baking soda (the secret Chinese meat tenderizer). To marinate (a quick marinade): Add basic beef marinade and mix to coat evenly. Let marinate for 15 minutes or up to overnight.

The main ingredients to a stir-fry are: Proteins – chicken, beef, pork, seafood, tofu, tempeh, seitan. Aromatics – garlic, green onions, shallots, ginger.