Stir-fry basics

Good food must first look good. It must look inviting. That's the characteristic a stir-fry must have. A good stir-fry makes vegetables "jump to life". Stir-frying is certainly a science, much as it is an art. Here are some basics.

Shapes and sizes matter a lot. Stir-fry works best when the ingredients being fried are similar in size and shape. This principle is simple as shaking pebbles in a jar. If you keep shaking a jar of pebbles of many sizes, the small ones always end up at the bottom, and the big ones float on top. Then think about what would happen if you heat the jar from the bottom. The small ones get heated first, then pass the heat to the big ones. When you stir fry ingredients of many sizes in one pan, the small ones get burnt long before the big ones are cooked. The same thing happens with irregular shapes. Flat thin strips stick to the bottom of the pan while round sticks roll around. But what if I really want to have different sizes and shapes? Then cook them separately and mix together at the end.

Different ingredients cook at different rates, even when they are cut to the same sizes. Celery is edible even when it's raw, but not green bean (cooking removes its toxin). Shrimp cooks in less than no time. Small chunks of meat takes a while. Tomato melts into a flood, while carrot remains dry as a stick. A simple approach is to cook the ingredients in the order of the time they need to cook. Always make sure the ingredients in the pan have "almost stopped" giving out water before adding new ones. As a rule of thumb, it's always easier to add water to a drying pan than to wade your spatula in a flood. 

There is, then, the aroma to talk about. It's high heat that brings forth the aroma of food. The characteristic aroma of food usually comes out just the strongest before it's burnt. Now we don't want to burn the food for the sake of a momentary good smell. So here is a fine balance between heat and water content (which comes from experience). I learnt to grasp it by having a glass of water in hand while heating up the pan. Whenever the food is going to get dry, add a little water. It is a misunderstanding that oil makes stir-fry better. A little oil is needed to get it started. But the rest is about heat.

Of course taste is important. The use of small amount of seasonings usually heightens the original taste of the food. But heavy seasonings cover up the taste of the food, and it is often a trick to cover up poor quality ingredients or cooking skill. But taste is really a personal preference, so it's up to you. Then there is color to think about. Unless you cannot see, color makes a real difference to the appetite. Sometimes, it helps to design a dish with a color combination that you like, then pick the ingredients from these colors. Other times, it's handy to have some pickles, nuts, dried fruit, or even jerky, to decorate an otherwise simple dish.