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Stir frying (爆 bào) in a wok

Stir frying is an English umbrella term used to describe two fast Chinese cooking techniques: chǎo (炒) and bào (爆). The term stir-fry was introduced into the English language by Buwei Yang Chao, in her book How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, to describe the chǎo technique. The two techniques differ in their speed of execution, the amount of heat used, and the amount of tossing done to cook the food in the wok. Cantonese restaurant patrons judge a chef's ability to perform stir frying by the "wok hei" produced in the food. This in turn is believed to display their ability to bring out the qi of the wok. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (3008x2000, 938 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Wok ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (3008x2000, 938 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Wok ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... An umbrella term is a word that provides a superset or grouping of related concepts, also called a hypernym. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Buwei Yang Chao was the wife of the eminent Chinese dialectologist and linguist, Yuen Ren Chao. ... Cooking in a wok The wok is a versatile round-bottomed cooking vessel originating in China. ... Cantonese (Yue) cuisine originates from Guangdong Province in southern China, or more precisely, the area around Canton (Guangzhou). ... Wok hei (Chinese: é‘Šæ°£; Jyutping: wok6 hei3; Mandarin Pinyin: ) is a term in Cantonese Chinese referring to the flavour, tastes, and essence imparted by a hot wok on the food. ... Qi, also commonly spelled chi (in Wade-Giles romanization) or ki (in romanized Japanese), is a fundamental concept of traditional Chinese culture. ...

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A product of the chǎo (炒) technique

A traditionally round-bottom iron pan called a wok is heated to a high temperature. A small amount of cooking oil is then poured down the side of the wok (a traditional expression in China regarding this is "hot wok, cold oil"), followed by dry seasonings (including ginger and garlic), then at the first moment the seasonings can be smelled, meats are added and agitated, then once the meat is seared, vegetables along with liquid ingredients (for example often including premixed combinations of some of soy sauce, vinegar, wine, salt, sugar, and cornstarch) are added and the wok may be covered for a moment so the water in the liquid ingredients can warm up the latest additions as it steams off. To keep the meat juicy, usually a cook would take the seared meat out before vegetables are added, and put the meat back right before vegetables are done. In some dishes, or if the cooking conditions are inadequate, different components may be stir fried separately before being combined in the final dish (if, for example, the chef desires the taste of the stir fried vegetables and meats to remain distinct). Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ... This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with vegetable oil. ... Seasoning is the process of adding flavours, or enhancing natural flavour of any type of food. ... Binomial name Zingiber officinale Roscoe Ginger is commonly used as a spice in cuisines throughout the world. ... Binomial name Allium sativum L. Allium sativum L., commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion family Alliaceae. ... Meat is animal flesh (mainly muscle tissue) used as food, sometimes with the exception of fish, other seafood, and poultry. ... Vegetables on a market Vegetable is a nutritional and culinary term denoting any part of a plant that is commonly consumed by humans as food, but is not regarded as a culinary fruit, nut, herb, spice, or grain. ... Jiu (Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is the Chinese word that refers to all alcoholic beverages. ...

The food is stirred and tossed out very quickly using wooden or metal cooking utensils. Some chefs will lift the wok to the side to let the flame light the oil or add a dash of wine spirit to give the food extra flavor. Using this method, many dishes can be cooked extremely quickly (within a minute). This is a list of food preparation utensils, also known as kitchenware. ... Jiu (Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is the Chinese word that refers to all alcoholic beverages. ...

Some dishes that require more time are cooked by adding a few dashes of water after the stirring. Then the wok is covered with a lid. As soon as steam starts to come out from under the lid, the dish is ready. In this case, the food is stir fried on high heat for flavor and then steamed to ensure that it is fully cooked. Flavor or flavour (see spelling differences) is the sensory impression of a food or other substance, and is determined mainly by the chemical senses of taste and smell. ...

Bao technique

The wok is heated to a dull red glow. With the wok hot, the oil, seasonings and meats are added in rapid succession with no pause in between. The food is continually tossed, stopping for several seconds only to add other ingredients such as various seasonings, broths or vegetables. When the food is deemed to be cooked it is poured and ladled out of the wok. The wok must then be quickly rinsed to prevent food residues from charring and burning to the wok bottom due to residual heat.

The main ingredients are usually cut to smaller pieces to aid in cooking. As well, a larger amount of cooking oil with a high smoke point, such as lard, is often used in bao. Lard refers to pig fat in both its rendered and unrendered forms. ...

Cultural differences

Most home kitchens in the West are poorly equipped to stir fry properly. The average kitchen is not designed to handle the large amount of oil vapour produced as a byproduct of proper stir frying. Those stir frying at home cannot achieve the same flavor as in restaurants because the wok is neither hot enough nor big enough to allow fast tossing. By contrast, most Chinese home kitchens are designed with stir frying in mind. The kitchen itself is either in a separate building or in a room with access to the outside. The stove is usually separated from the rest of the kitchen and near a large window to allow for ventilation. The kitchen itself usually is lined with tile or brick for easy cleaning. In the western world, remedies can be purchased such as specially designed vents to better direct the oil vapour out of the house. A kitchen is a room used for food preparation. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Vapor (US English) or vapour (British English) is the gaseous state of matter. ... Return inlet (left)Supply outlet (right). ... Mission, or barrel, roof tiles A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, porcelain, metal or even glass. ... An old brick wall in English bond laid with alternating courses of headers and A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction and sized to be layed with one hand using mortar. ...

Western-marketed woks with non-stick coating are not considered appropriate for proper stir-frying because the Teflon coating usually disintegrates after exposure to high heat. By contrast, according to Cantonese cooking standards, low heat non-stick stir-frying is not stir-frying at all. Teflon woks also require the use of Teflon-safe utensils made of plastic or wood, which some traditional Chinese stir fryers deem are not as effective as metal utensils. Western woks are also usually flat-bottomed to accommodate for western stove tops that are flat, where a round-bottomed wok would roll around. Teflon is polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a polymer of fluorinated ethylene. ...

Many Western cooks on TV demonstrate stir frying on low heat with a small wok and a stirring motion comparable to tossing a salad. This is a western adaptation of stir frying, and is different from the traditional Chinese method. Salad Platter Salad is a term applied broadly to many food preparations that are a mixture of chopped or sliced ingredients. ... A tradition is a story or a custom that is memorized and passed down from generation to generation, originally without the need for a writing system. ...

See also

• Sautéing

Sauté [V. saw-tay] is a method of cooking food a small amount of fat in a shallow pan over relatively high heat. ...

References

• Chao, Buwei Yang (1972). How to Cook and Eat in Chinese. Random House. ISBN 0394717031. 
• Young, Grace (2004). The Breath of a Wok. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-3827-3. 

External links

Wikibooks Cookbook has an article on

Stir-fry

• How to Stir-fry: Illustrated Step-by-step
• Stir-fry Recipes