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

FAQs

What are the 3 rules of stir-frying? ›

Food & Dining

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.

According to Food & Wine, ketchup is the ultimate way to take the flavor of homemade stir fry up a level, thanks to its sweet and sour flavor profile. It just might be the easiest cooking hack to elevate your home cooking to that of your favorite take-out.

Packages of pre-cut beef strips, beef for stir-fry, are often available in the meat case. Most tender beef cuts, such as sirloin, tri-tip, ribeye, top loin (strip), tenderloin, shoulder center (Ranch Steak), shoulder top blade (Flat Iron) and shoulder petite tender, can be cut into strips for use in stir-fry recipes.

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.

Cornstarch! In his book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman recommends mixing 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch with the same amount of water, and tossing this into the stir fry just when it's almost done. It thickens in seconds, picking up the flavors of everything already in the dish and coating evenly.

While there are several ways to velvet, a pound of meat needs about two teaspoons of cornstarch and two teaspoons of oil, says Leung. You may also include two to three tablespoons of water. For beef, add a 1/4-teaspoon of baking soda for tenderizing. Additional seasonings are optional and vary from recipe to recipe.

Why is Chinese stir-fry beef so tender? ›

This is how to use a cheaper cut of beef/steak, such as rump, for your stir-fry, whilst still ensuring it's soft and tender. After all, no-one wants a chewy stir fry! The method is known as velveting or tenderising. There are a few different ways to velvetise steak – which is a common practice in Chinese restaurants.

Tenderize: In a bowl, sprinkle a small amount of baking soda over the beef and coat evenly with soy sauce, salt, starch, and oil (and optional ingredients, if using). Marinate: After sitting in the mixture for 15 to 30 minutes in the fridge, your beef is ready for stir-frying!

Less than a teaspoon of baking soda ensures that your steak remains juicy and tender—even after a speedy marinade. While other recipes demand hours of marinating, this baking soda hack makes a flank steak or any other fibrous cut of beef ready to sear after just an hour.

Cut Thin Slices

The thinner the beef, the more tender it will taste and the less chewy it will be. Thicker strips require longer cooking times, which usually means the outside is overcooked by the time the inside is cooked.

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.

A great stir-fry typically consists of four important components: protein, vegetables, aromatics, and sauce. Standard stir-fry starts with one pound of protein and two pounds of vegetables, and a basic stir-fry sauce (recipe below). You can add aromatics or herbs to change the flavor profile of your dish.

Stir-fry onions first, then add hard vegetables such as carrot and broccoli. Quick-cooking vegetables, such as snow peas, leafy greens and bean sprouts, should be added towards the end of cooking. If using vegies that have a combination of both textures, such as gai laan, add the stems first and the leaves later.

The principle behind making a stir fry is to cook your ingredients quickly in a small amount of very hot oil. To keep frying it as fast as possible, it's important to properly prepare all your ingredients. So before you turn up the heat, we recommend you: Marinade any meat, fish or tofu in your choice of sauce.