Today, we wanted to take a break from our
usual recipe driven videos and really zero in on stir-fry technique. We’ll show you four different ways that
you can stir-fry – first, a basic ingredient by ingredient stir-fry… second, how you’d do the same thing only
without a wok… third, how you’d stir fry with all the ingredients together… and finally,
the common restaurant technique of pre-cooking the meat with a brief deep fry. To minimize confusion, we’ll be showing
all this with one dish – a simple, classic homecooking stir fry of pork and chilis called
Qingjiao Rousi. But before we get into it, a quick word on
heat source. See, if you talk to a lot of people in the
West, they’ll insist that it’s impossible to stir fry without a high powered restaurant
stove, which, to be frank, is… nonsense. This is the little burner we use for these
videos, and this is the flame it makes. No jet engine here, if I’ve done my math
right it’s a shade under 10 thousand BTUs… by comparison, a Western home stove usually
clocks in at around 7 thousand, a Chinese home stove, 14 thousand, a Western professional
range 30 thousand, and… and those Chinese restaurant jet engines, 100 thousand or even
higher. Those stoves are cool, but much more important
is your technique. So don’t fret if you’ve got a wimpy range,
you’re still well in the margin of error. So to get started, we’re using 150 grams
of pork loin. Pork is.. vastly easier to work with than
beef or chicken, so if you’re new to stir frying, start with pork. Now we’ll be slicing this into slivers against
the grain. The grain is the direction of the muscle fibers…
what you wanna do is slice down perpendicular to those fibers. So first cut into the pork to get roughly
2 millimeter wide sheets, and for some stir fries you’d stop there, but for this one
we’ll stack all those up and cut into them about 3 millimeters apart to get some… slivers. Transfer that over to a bowl, and we can marinate. This sort of marination’s sometimes called
velveting in English … and it is critical to a good stir fry. For this amount of meat we’ll add in a quarter
teaspoon salt and a half teaspoon sugar… this makes the meat juicer just like a dry
brine would. We’ll also toss in a half teaspoon liaojiu
a.k.a. Shaoxing wine… if you can’t find this sort of wine, most people suggest dry
sherry but I’d personally reach for some sort of rice wine instead. Next up is a half teaspoon cornstarch – this’s
crucially important as it’ll coat the pork and prevent moisture loss… and I personally
mix the starch with the wine before tossing them in to prevent clumps. Then to season, we’ll add in a quarter teaspoon
soy sauce… here we’re using dark soy sauce for color but regular soy sauce would work
just fine. Once that’s all combined, squirt in about
a teaspoon of oil and coat all that well and set it aside for at least 15 minutes to marinate. For this particular stir fry, we’ll be frying
that pork together with 100 grams of chilis. We live in China, so these are Sichuan erjingtiao
chilis… but feel free to use whatever’s convenient and tasty where you live. Julienne some poblanos, anaheims, jalapenos,
green bell peppers… really whatever. For aromatics, we’ve got an inch of ginger…
smash it, julienne, then get into a fine mince… and two cloves of garlic… smashed, julienned,
and gotten into a fine mince. And now, to stir fry. So a nice first step to a stir fry is a technique
called "Longyau", or "Huaguo" in Mandarin… it’s a restaurant technique that’ll get
you a nice slippery frying surface. In restaurants before frying, they’ll heat
their wok til it’s super hot, add in some oil, swirl it around, and drain it into a
dedicated side oil bowl. We know most people don’t keep an extra
oil bowl lying around their kitchen, so instead we like to get our wok piping hot, about steak
searching temperature, shut off the heat, add in the oil we need to fry with, so here
about two tablespoons, and give it a swirl to get a nice non-stick surface. So with your flame on high now, toss in the
marinated pork slivers. Break them apart with some chopsticks cuz
slivers tend to clump, and fry for about one minute until 90% done. This step by step stir-fry helps ensure each
ingredient is perfectly cooked, so once the color’s visibly turned, set that aside. Now do another longyau with about one or two
tablespoons of oil, and immediately after finishing toss in the garlic and the ginger
over the same high heat. You want to add your aromatics basically seconds
after adding the oil or else they can burn on you. After about 15 seconds, pour a tablespoon
of liaojiu or your wine of choice over your spatula and around the sides of the wok. This’ll cool everything down, so quick mix,
and go in with the chilis. Fry those for about 30 seconds, then add back
the pork. Quick 15 second fry, then season with a teaspoon
of soy sauce and a quarter teaspoon of salt. Give it a brief toss if you can, shut off
the heat, and drizzle in a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil. Quick mix, and… out. Pork and chilis, done. Now suppose you don’t own a wok. I like woks and so should you, but you can
still stir-fry without one. This is a 28 centimeter non-stick wok, which’s
basically a glorified non-stick skillet. This’s all more or less the same, only no
need to really do that whole longyau routine. Just heat stuff up like you’re used to,
high heat, and add in the oil. Pork in, same one minute fry, and reserve. Then with the flame back on high, swirl in
a touch of cool oil, and toss in the aromatics. 15 second fry, then swirl in that liaojiu
wine… this’ll annoyingly be kinda messy which’s why woks are better. Toss in your sliced chilis, fry that for about
45 seconds… tossing’ll help the pan cook it more evenly but it takes a touch longer. Then go in with the pork and fry for about
30 seconds, and season with your teaspoon of soy sauce and quarter teaspoon of salt. Quick toss, heat off, teaspoon toasted sesame
oil, brief mix, and… out. No wok, same exact thing, just a touch more
kitchen to scrub down after. Now if you’ve ever eaten on the street in
China, usually you find that vendors don’t cook in stages, but instead do everything
in one pot. Still dead simple to execute. Same exact method of stir-frying that pork,
but once it’s about 80% finished, scooch it up the side of the wok. Add a touch of cool oil, aromatics in, fry
for 15 seconds then mix everything together. Add your wine over the spatula and around
the sides of the wok… chilis in, 30 second fry, seasoning in, quick toss, heat off. Sprinkle in your sesame oil, give it a mix,
and… out. Finally, let’s talk about the deep frying
method. This technique is also called passing through
oil, is a go-to method for restaurants, and makes for super juicy, tender meat. For this one, we’ll also crack a half an
egg white into the marinade, which further tenderizes our pork. Egg white marinades tend to stick to the wok
if you’re using one of the previous methods, but work brilliantly while deep frying. So in a round bottomed wok, get about a cup
or so of oil up until 180 centigrade and toss in the marinated pork. Fry that for about twenty seconds… round
bottomed woks are awesome for deep frying, but you could also use a little more oil and
shallow fry in a pan instead. Pour out the oil, and reserve the pork. Now I figure some of you might want to know
how to add a sauce to your stir-fry, so let’s make one real quick. To three tablespoons of water add in a half
teaspoon of stock concentrate, or alternatively just use stock if you got some on hand. Add in your seasoning… so here that was
our quarter teaspoon salt and our teaspoon of soy sauce. Then in a separate bowl make a slurry of a
half tablespoon cornstarch and just enough water to let it come together, about one teaspoon. If you want a saucier stir-fry, add more stock
and cornstarch… if you just want a touch of sheen, add less. So go through the motions just like we did
before, but when you’d add the seasoning lower the flame to medium and add the sauce
instead. Quick mix, then go in with the slurry. And once that’s thickened up, about 15 seconds,
take it out. Qingjiao rousi, done.
Guy has a great pilot voice
I love how effortlessly he pronounces Chinese
This is a very well made how to. This is authentic as well way more steps than I imagined.
That's some really nice stuff I used to be curious about 'stir fry'
Chinese babish! Some people just got some good lookin torso and hands.
Good god i'm hungry for pork and chili
Although the dish he cooks in the video would be fine, he’s incorrect about having no need for the high heat of those jet engine burners.
The reason Chinese chefs need scorching high heat is to achieve “Wok Hei” which translated to English means “wok thermal radiation”. It’s the smokey flavour food gets from stir frying over extremely high heat, without burning the food. It’s developing of flavours while retaining the crunch and texture of foods as well.
Source: google wok hei