Here's a quick one. When I was at uni, I managed to get the three-ingredient stir fry down to about 20 minutes from prep to plate, including rice or noodles. How? Well, mainly heat, and lots of it.
I eat stir fry meals, ooo... maybe as much as 4 or 5 days out of seven? As I've said many times before and will do so again, I don't really eat much in the way of vegetables due to deep-seated texture and flavour problems, and this super-fast method allows me to control those two factors more easily. Over the years, of course, my tastes have gradually changed and my methodology has improved, so let's run down a classic... The secret to all of this is keeping your pan really seriously terrifyingly hot - hard to achieve with a normal domestic hob, but do the best you can.
Here's the OG method - this will sort you out literally in minutes. Everything is based around having a "main" ingredient that you accompany with other things, so meat or seafood or tofu or seitan, yeah?
Oil a wok or a deep saute pan (more on that later) with something like vegetable or sunflower or groundnut oil NOT OLIVE OIL. Set it on the hottest part of your hob on max, and don't even think about it until the oil starts to shimmer in the pan and smoke rises from the bowl, and then add your main ingredient and let it sit for a second so the pan gets a bit of heat back up, and then proceed to stir it about in the hot oil. Whatever your using will cook at different rates and it'll also depend on how it's been prepared - if you buy one of those "stir fry packs" of meat from a supermarket they're normally quite large strips so keep an eye on it; you want to be keeping everything hot and not get to a stage where there's a kind of foamy liquid as that will steam your ingredients rather than seal and fry.
Anyway, this first part shouldn't take very long, only something like 5ish minutes? Eyeball it, literally; is starting to colour? Great. Some Light Soy sauce. Light Soy for the flavour, right? Add the "tough" veg - for me, that's broccoli usually. Baby corn is another great find - just a little bit more time is necessary rather that the "soft" stuff. Speaking of "soft", that's onion or leek or pak choi or something; a little more delicate. Don't overdo it. Take control over the texture of your food, and absolutely don't let anything burn. Then, a splash of Dark Soy. Not too much! That's it! Job done. Serve immediately over rice or noodles.
I eat stir fry meals, ooo... maybe as much as 4 or 5 days out of seven? As I've said many times before and will do so again, I don't really eat much in the way of vegetables due to deep-seated texture and flavour problems, and this super-fast method allows me to control those two factors more easily. Over the years, of course, my tastes have gradually changed and my methodology has improved, so let's run down a classic... The secret to all of this is keeping your pan really seriously terrifyingly hot - hard to achieve with a normal domestic hob, but do the best you can.
Here's the OG method - this will sort you out literally in minutes. Everything is based around having a "main" ingredient that you accompany with other things, so meat or seafood or tofu or seitan, yeah?
- Whatever you want, sliced into strips or chunks
- "Tough" vegetable
- "Soft" vegetable
Oil a wok or a deep saute pan (more on that later) with something like vegetable or sunflower or groundnut oil NOT OLIVE OIL. Set it on the hottest part of your hob on max, and don't even think about it until the oil starts to shimmer in the pan and smoke rises from the bowl, and then add your main ingredient and let it sit for a second so the pan gets a bit of heat back up, and then proceed to stir it about in the hot oil. Whatever your using will cook at different rates and it'll also depend on how it's been prepared - if you buy one of those "stir fry packs" of meat from a supermarket they're normally quite large strips so keep an eye on it; you want to be keeping everything hot and not get to a stage where there's a kind of foamy liquid as that will steam your ingredients rather than seal and fry.
Anyway, this first part shouldn't take very long, only something like 5ish minutes? Eyeball it, literally; is starting to colour? Great. Some Light Soy sauce. Light Soy for the flavour, right? Add the "tough" veg - for me, that's broccoli usually. Baby corn is another great find - just a little bit more time is necessary rather that the "soft" stuff. Speaking of "soft", that's onion or leek or pak choi or something; a little more delicate. Don't overdo it. Take control over the texture of your food, and absolutely don't let anything burn. Then, a splash of Dark Soy. Not too much! That's it! Job done. Serve immediately over rice or noodles.
This is another cornerstone of my cuisine - even today I made myself a dinner that took longer to prep and cook than it did to eat with this very same method - Beef and shiitake mushrooms on noodles.
Always, I advise using a wok. But when I have to cook separate portions of stuff, I have a big saute pan that can substitute. Ideally of course I'd have two but eh. The curved sides of a wok help with liquid - rather than just throw sauces or water in to the pan, introduce things by the side and then stirring in, a much better way to coat all your ingredients.
This is the absolute minimum. If you want to use fish sauce, or rice wine vinegar or szechuan pepper or literally a n y t h i n g then absolutely do so. I haven't even mentioned garlic or ginger or chilli yet. Much like making rice this really is the essential minimum of my diet - so much great food for me starts here.
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