Broccoli & Chicken stir fry - how to improve?

Im assuming that your not "velveting" the meat.

Generally i find that the meat is deep fried in a seasoned mixture of cornflour salt and pepper (maybe a little water) until golden brown. The vegetables are then stir fried, the meat is returned to the wok and finished with a sauce, which is then thickened using a mixture of cornflour, stock and the sauce rather than reduction.

Velveting refers to frying the meat until it is golden brown.

Chicken should be coated lightly in corn starch as the chinese do.. Stir it more so as to stop sticking to pan surface.

I would blanch the brocolli and cook everything in the sauce for a minimal amount of time, until it is thick enough. Your marinade should also include a small amount of cornstarch and instead of stir frying you might want to blanch in a shallow amount of oil, not too high a heat to be deep frying it and not to give it much colour.

For chinese restaurant style, the meat would have been marinated most likely in light soy, shaohsing wine, a little corn starch and oil. The oil is solely for keeping it from sticking together much. Easy to work with.

It would then given a cornstarch coating and blanched in oil. This combines two concepts, the velveting for texture and passing for production cooking, but also classic technique of some dishes. At this point, they probably refrigerate it pending service and this chicken could be used for many different dishes.

The broccoli would have been blanched in boiling water, but at home I actually do much as you do with a short steam in the wok.

It is then very quick to assemble to order. One of things you're missing here is the oyster sauce as that's the kicking flavor in the sauce.

So for home cooking, I'd skip the velveting and passing. It's nice texturally and all but I'd rather avoid the added oil in my diet and the extra work. Just know how it's done if you want to do it for entertaining purposes. I recommend a different marinade and final sauce an d handling the aromatics differently.

Marinade:
light soy sauce
shaoshing wine
little bit of corn starch

Sauce
oyster sauce
chicken stock
water/corn starch slurry

Some fermented black beans would also be a fun variation to add to this dish.




Combine the chicken and marinade. There shouldn't be any leftover liquid to speak of. It should just look a bit moist Marinate 15 minutes while you prep vegetables and sauce.

It sounds like you're not using a wok and don't have the high heat so technique needs to be adapted. Non-stick is fine but not preferred in my opinion. I don't think you'll produce quite the aroma and flavor in a non-stick pan. It does keep up a semblance of stir fry, but you won't really be stir frying much in reality. Grace Young gives good instruction on adapting technique to western stoves in Breath of a Wok and is worth reading.

Heat your pan quite hot, add the oil and even it out in the pan quickly. Add the chicken, moving it only as needed to get it one layer. You might have to do it in batches as you said depending how much you're cooking. You don't want the pan temp to drop much. Leave it alone for a minute or two. Let it pick up some sear and RELEASE itself from the pan. Stir fry another minute or minute and a half and remove from pan.

Add more oil if you need it.

At this point you can add the garlic and ginger. That's a fairly classic technique in Chinese cooking to scent the oil. Cook's Illustrated prefers to add the aromatics later so their flavors are more distinct and up front in the dish. They have a point and I recommend you experiment a bit with timing of the aromatics to see what you like. I tend to prefer adding them later in this kind of dish, but it varies from dish to dish.

In with the broccoli, toss a bit to even out and toast the edges a bit. Add a splash of shaohsing wine and some water or stock and cover for a minute to steam. You don't want it to cook completely in this time, just soften a bit. Remove the lid and now is when I like to add the aromatics. As well as some black pepper and a little sugar.

Toss to distribute and wait for the aromatics to cook a bit, about 30 seconds or so. Add the chicken,. Toss again to mix and warm chicken. Add the sauce, tossing to mix until the sauce comes together and the ingredients have a sheen of sauce. Any pinkness remaining in the chicken should be cooked out by now. Serve immediately.

About saucing. Restaurants use lots of sauce because that's how Americans like it. The Chinese use sauces just to lightly coat/glaze the ingredients.

If I were doing a big batch for a group, I would pre blanch the broccoli and velvet and pass the chicken in oil so it comes together quickly in the wok for fast service.

I'm a little disturbed by the same thing you're complaining about, i.e., the soy-sauce sludge.

Tell me how you saute. How much oil? What temperature?

While I'm down with the whole corn starch thing, I get the feeling you're avoiding it intentionally. You can make perfectly acceptable "stir fry" without it, although it will be more "Lean Cuisine," than Shanghai. But what you want trumps "authenticity."

You probably can't "pass" in a non-stick skiillet. You just can't get the right ratios of heat and oil in a flat pan. In order to saute, you'll get best results following the saute rules, ratios and timing. Your procedure seems more geared to "soggy," than sauteed.

Try blanching your broccoli first to avoid steaming, in the middle of the saute process. At the least, if you're going to cover, do it over low heat and as the last thing. Don't try to saute again in the same pan without draining the pan, reheating it and reoiling it.

BDL

I think the sludge is more an artifact of too much marinade going in to the pan with the chicken.

In my experience with chinese cooking, you shouldn't have left over marinade. There should be just enough to season the meat, not to soak in it. This prevents the sludge problem.

Passing is deep frying the meat first. The chinese term translates something along the lines of going/passing through oil. Usually just called passing.

And I am in favor of you using a stainless pan as I mentioned. Or better yet, a wok. A carbon steel wok is quite nice and inexpensive. You might find some of the discussion http://www.cheftalk.com/forums/cooki...ial-class.html useful.

Passing is the deep frying of meat prior to the primary wok cooking.

Velveting is a coating technique that results in smooth silky meat. In it's most classic sense it's egg white and cornstarch on the meat, then gently deep fried. Often just abbreviated with a corn starch coating and pan fried/wok stir-fried.

Invest in a cheap carbon steel wok. I was given a flat bottom one and it makes a difference in how the product turns out. I can have the hot spot on the bottom with the cooler edges to push stuff up on to slow down the cooking.

How much oil do you use?

I can't add much to what Phil told you about passing and velveting. For you, the important thing to take away is that in Chinese cooking things are cooked, removed, reserved, and the final dish is as much assembled as cooked. You may not like it, but it's the right way to go about it.

It's almost as though I knew you were going to say this. Spooky.

No. Basically you need to learn to saute and/or wok properly. Both of these involve learning the right amounts of heat and oil.

Less marinade? Well, if you're sauteeing, which means some but not much oil, you want the chicken pretty dry when it goes in the pan. If you're passing the chicken through a puddle of oil in a wok, you can tolerate carrying a little more marinade into the oil but (a) you'll have to start using some starch (and eggwhite would be very helpfuly too) in the marinade; and (b) you'll get splatter.

Stainless will do some things, but not everything better. If you're using a saute pan, I suggest you saute the chicken rather than fry it. What's the difference? Amount of oil, amount of agitation. A saute takes a fair amount of heat.

So let's delve into the heat/oil techniques you use now a bit more, before coming to the conclusion they're wrong. You said medium-high heat and that's right. How about the oil?

BDL

While BDL is not wrong, I don't fully subscribe to what is written above. Part of saute AND wok technique is not dropping the pan temperature too much. The primary control of this is what you put in the pan. That can be not crowding the pan, but also not putting in overly wet ingredients or other excess moisture.

French Fries is having excess marinade cook out into the pan. Even with enough oil in the pan that's undesirable as once the water boils out, there are still those pesky dissolved solids gunking up the oil and the chicken. Plus the temperature management issue.

So yes, it's about good technique. But technique includes proper management of what you put in the pan as well.

It seems to me that you're using the right amount of oil and heat. I thought you might have been using too little oil, but your amount is borderline too much.

Sauteing is a process which splits the difference between dry-pan and frying. Most of the heat transference is by contact (pan bottom) rather than immersion (oil). On the other hand, the oil allows the frequent and rapid agitation which is so characteristic.

To saute in a regular pan: Heat the pan, then heat the oil as you've been doing. Add the chicken to the pan, without overcrowding. Leave the pan alone for a minute or two, and give it a good, firm shake. The chicken will stick. Fine. Don't panic. Give it another thirty seconds and shake. And again, if it continues to stick. By this time, most of the chicken will probably be loose. Try and shake the loose pieces against the sticking pieces to knock them loose too.

Toss-turn the pieces by throwing them into the air and catching them with the pan -- if you can. Otherwise use a large spoon or spatula. Turn frequently until the chicken is not quite cooked through -- remember it will continue to cook as it rests (socalled carryover), and be cooked again later -- and reserve it.

The whole toss-turn thing makes more sense if you remember that the word "saute" is "jump" in French.

To saute in a non-stick pan: Non-stick is a bit of a handicap because the pan doesn't tell you when you're ready for the first agitation. On the other hand, you don't have to deal with food that sticks to the pan and tears. What can I say? Try and hold off on the first and second agitations until you get a little browning.

One of your new carbon-steel skillets would be perfect.

BDL

I seem to have missed the part on egg whites when reading this yesterday but did attempt velveting when I made one of my stir-fry concoctions last night. I dusted my chicken pieces with cornstarch and cooked it in toasted sesame oil for a bit until it was lightly browned. Wow! This made such a huge difference in the texture and was much more like our favorite Chinese restaurant dishes. I have a long way to go on learning to cook these types of food but finally saw some improvement last night. The family was impressed!

Thanks for asking the question and thank you all for your feedback!

Allie,

A classic marinade is egg white, chinese wine (you can use medium-dry sherry like amontillado), soy (dark or light), fresh ginger slices (batonet), scallion slices, and corn starch. Sometimes a little bit of sesame oil is added.

The proportions are very ad hoc. You add a splash of each liquid until you've got enough in total to coat your meat easily -- then enough corn starch to get it slimy, but not enough to get it gooey. (Wonderfully descriptive language, English.)

You probably found out that the combination of egg white and corn starch gives a fluffy batter type texture. Without the egg white it's tighter, and not as obviously "pre-fried." EAch is as good as the other, just different.

Sesame oil burns at cooking temperatures and the taste changes for the worse. More important, it's also not healthy. Next time, add a little sesame oil to your marinade if you like -- just as above. Cook in regular oil. Then add some sesame oil just as you're about to plate, or dress with a sesame oil sauce (or just plain sesame oil) on the plate. Your stir fry will be even more delicious.

If you like spicy hotness as much as you like sesame, try a few drips of "lan yu." Go very easy with it until you know what it does.

BDL

I might as well throw in a couple of comments. Like others have suggested, you may be putting too much marinade in at the beginning. If not doing a cornstarch coated deep fry first but a marinade to start, I try to drain the marinated meat bits as best I can before cooking. Usually the drained marinade is mixed with a corn starch slurry or something similar then added later after the high temp cooking is done for a last moment sauce.

And in general it is high temperature when it comes to stir fry. Non-stick cookware is not the best for such use. A plain old steel wok is the best, but I'll have to admit I haven't had one in the house for a while. I think it got lost in the last move. In my opinion most home chefs cook stir fry at too low a temp for too long. Hmm, there was an Iron Chef episode where one of the Iron Chefs, Chen most likely, did a fried rice in something like 42 seconds. Impressive.

Yep, watching too many Iron Chef episodes lately - gotta get my stir fry mojo going. I think that somewhere in the deepest, dark recesses of the basement there might be a Sunbeam electric, non-stick wok, in a bright and cheery designer color that might be - oh, never mind.

mjb.

This is not only relevant to this stir fry discussion, but to many techniques. Jumping in too early is a common mistake.

Don't push the river, it flows by itself.

mjb.

You kept the nightmare electric but dumped the good one? Well, the electric ones make decent steamers.

You've got plenty of places to pick up a new one cheaply. I got my latest wok at Vinh Long at 119 W 7200 South. I also like Southeast Asian market at 422 E 900 South for woks. Super China Market at 115 W 9000 Has a lot of cookware though I don't like their wok selection as well. Tay Do on 4161 South Redwood also has some good woks usually. There's a number of Vietnamese stores along Redwoode between Tay do and on northward up to about 2700 South or so. I can't remember all their names. Hong Phat on 3086 South Redwood is a fun one to stop in for Banh Mi but their cookware selection isn't that good. I like their Banh Mi Dac Biet the best.

I don't know what you're close to but I hope that helps.

Thanks so much for the suggestions, BDL. I did notice the sesame oil starts smoking really soon after putting it into the hot pan. We have liked the flavor but I will definitely give your suggestions a try. I did not realize it wasn't for cooking in like I was doing and thought it would be a little healthier because it's a nut oil. Oops! Guess I was wrong. So will olive oil be better to use?

Having only eaten in what I'm sure are not the best Chinese restaurants and knowing no one personally who cooks any type of Asian food, my attempts have been totally experimental. I have a long way to go in acquiring the ingredients,knowledge, and tools to make the things I'd like to try. I just buy a little here and there when I have the extra money.

Olive oil is a terrible choice. You want something that won't give much flavor -- or if does give flavor, it's one which compliments the food. Also, olive oil has a relatively low smoke point; while Chinese cooking is relatively high heat. Not a good combination.

Any neutral, high temperature oil will do. "Vegetable oil," canola oil, etc., if that's what you like. But the two best oils for Chinese cooking, not to mention general frying, are corn and peanut. Peanut oil is expensive and more used by "gourmet" white people than by Chinese. But it's good. Corn oil is probably the best overall choice.

BDL

Toasted Sesame oil should normally only be used to "finish" a dish, never to start one. As BDL said, the temperatures destroy the volatile compounds that contribute to its flavour and it burns at relatively low temperatures.

Honestly, I don't know what sort of scientific evidence backs up the quick marination process, especially with oils... but it is done, so if anything at least you're following tradition.

Thank you all! Like French Fries, I'm very glad to have the info on the sesame oil. It's so expensive so I'll be happy to use less as just a bit of flavor enhancement. Gotcha on the olive oil, I usually have vegetable or canola oil in the house for baking. I sometimes buy corn oil but don't think I've ever used peanut because of the costs. I know you can't always cut corners but I try to make do the best I can. Of course, just buying a small bottle to use won't be so bad since it doesn't take a whole lot to stir fry.