Common Stir Fry Techniques

Stir-frying (炒): Basic steps for stir frying are:

  1. Heat up wok and coat wok with thin layer of cooking oil;

  2. Fry main ingredients to desire ripeness;

  3. Stir in various spices for tast.

Yet stir-frying can be divided into many sub-methods:

  • Raw stir-frying (生炒) – main ingredients are raw without adding starch and thick paste.  Retain freshness of the ray ingredients.

  • Pre-cooked food stir-frying (熟炒) – main ingredients are pre-cooked and cut into one shape (for example dices, slices).  they are then stirred with sauce (usually thick/dark).

  • Slippery stir-frying (滑炒) – raw ingredients are marinated and then stir-fried with starched based sauce.

  • Clear stir-frying (清炒) – raw ingredients are stir-fried without too much starched based sauce.

  • Dry stir-frying (干炒) – without coating, raw ingredients are stir-fried relatively longer time to evaporate their water content.

  • Mixed stir-frying (抓炒) – main ingredients are coated with starched base batter (either with egg or just water), deep-fried, then mixed quickly with various sauce.

  • Soft stir-frying (软炒) – Main ingredients are smashed into small pieces, stir fried with water.

Besides stir-frying technique, there are other cooking techniques:

Deep-frying (炸) – ingredients are fried in high temperature oil:

  • Dry deep-frying (干炸) – marinated main ingredients deep dried with a thin coat of starch powder.

  • Clear deep-frying (清炸) – marinated main ingredients deep fried without any starch coating.

  • Flaky deep-frying (酥炸) – main ingredients are pre-cooked, then dipped with egg starch mix for deep frying.

  • Soft deep-frying (软炸) – raw material coats with thin layer of egg starch mix for deep frying.

  • Paper-wrapped deep-frying (纸包炸) – marinated material wrapped with rice flour sheet and then deep fry.

  • Crisp deep-frying (脆炸) – marinated material wrapped with dry bean curd sheet then deep fry.

High heat frying (爆) – Ingredients are deep-fried in very hot oil over high heat, then the oil is filtered out,  spices and sauce are mixed to the ingredients in the wok.

Slippery-frying (熘) – Prepare the main ingredients the same ways as either stir-frying or deep-frying, then use relatively more amount of water in the starch sauce to mix with the main ingredients.  Main ingredients are typically in block shape. Result is a texture as slippery as satin.

Frying (煎) – heat the wok, then coat the wok with cooking oil.  Put in ingredients to fry until their sides become golden color.

For the rest of cooking techniques, please see http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/30620528.html (in Chinese) and Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stir_fry.