Best Way to Prepare Beef for Stir Fry
We accept a lot of beef recipes in our archives here at The Woks of Life, so we wanted to show anybody how to ready beef for stir-fry including the step-by-step process for velveting beef for Chinese cooking. Nosotros'll recommend our favorite cuts of beef to utilize and testify you how to properly cut and marinate beef just like it's done in Chinese restaurants.
We always give important details in all of our recipes, including preparation and cooking, but I thought it was time to write a post focused on preparing beef properly for the wok!
What Cut of Beef is All-time for Stir-fry?
Flank steak is by far the nigh popular cut of meat used by Chinese restaurants in all of their stir-fry dishes. It likewise happens to exist the most recommended cut of beef nosotros apply in our stir-fry recipes.
Flank steak is flavorful, reasonably priced, and readily available. With its intense bulky flavor, all you need to practise is make sure y'all piece and marinate it properly to make a not bad stir-fry. For $vi.99 to $8.99 a pound, it won't break the banking concern either.
Boneless beef chuck steak is a more than economical choice for beef stir chips. We like using beef chuck steak for stewing and braising because of the extra fatty that comes with this cut of meat, but it can besides work nicely for stir-fries.
At $4.99 to $5.99 per pound, chuck steak is also more economic than flank steak. You can buy a large piece, piece information technology, divide it into portions for several stir-fries, and freeze information technology!
A lilliputian more than trimming and intendance is required to ready the beef chuck steak for stir fry. Cut forth the fat lines and remove the thick membrane to get some neat chunks of beef for slicing. Use a skilful chef'southward knife and equally always, be careful when working with sharp knives!
How to Cut Beef For Stir-fry
If using flank steak, trim off any white muscle membranes, and cutting your flank steak forth the grain lengthwise into ii to 2 ane/ii inch strips.
It's easy to identify the long grains of muscle fiber in flank steak. When slicing the flank steak into small pieces, piece against the grain (perpendicular to the long lines of musculus).
Make each slice 1/4″ thick––each slice will be tender and bite-sized.
Now your beef is ready for marinating!
If using boneless beefiness chuck, check out our instructions for how to slice it beneath. If not, skip downwards to the side by side section.
Cutting Boneless Beef Chuck for Stir-fry
Cutting meat against the grain is very important to yield nice tender pieces in your stir-fry dishes.
Over again, the "grain" refers to the long strands of muscle running through the beefiness parallel to each other. Cutting against the grain means cutting beyond those strands, and then the long strands of musculus can be made shorter to create small, tender pieces.
It's much harder to place how the grain runs in beef chuck than for flank steak. In this photo, y'all can see the design of meat and fat where the grain runs vertically.
Since nosotros accept to cut cross-wise to the grain, for this slice, we need to cut the long strip into 2-inch wide chunks first.
And then position each piece to cut them so the long fibers are cut short.
See how the knife is positioned where it will cutting the beef against the grain?
Now, cutting your beef into ane/4″ thick slices
You can see the grain and the slice a fleck clearer in this photograph, just you can imagine that the soft beef can exist difficult to handle and slice.
A chef's underground to slicing beef chop-chop is to freeze the meat partially for 30 to 60 minutes until information technology is house. This makes slicing much easier and faster, as the firm beef does non slide under your knife and around the cutting lath. Partially frozen meat also allows you to be more precise in cutting to your desired thickness.
How to Cut Beefiness for Lo Mein & Other Noodle Dishes
If using beefiness for noodle dishes or dishes like Beefiness and Pepper Stir Fry, an actress step to slice beefiness into thin strips (julienne) is required.
In Chinese stir-fry cooking, the manner ingredients are cut should exist consequent with each other. Rectangular slices of beefiness are used for stir-fries with vegetables like beef and broccoli or beefiness and tofu. Long strands of noodles like you have in Beef Lo Mein require beef to be cut into similar long thin strips.
Beef fried rice requires small-scale chunks of meat to get with the pocket-sized grains of rice. Brand sense?
How Chinese Restaurants Tenderize Beef
It's time to share some Chinese restaurant secrets on how to tenderize beef. Tenderizing your beef is the starting time footstep of the traditional procedure of velveting beefiness practiced by almost all Chinese chefs.
Chinese eating place chefs take some actress steps in preparing beef for their stir-fry dishes.
The first stride is to add a good amount of blistering soda to the beef––about one rounded teaspoon per pound of beef.
Side by side, add together 1/4 loving cup h2o (per pound of beef) or until the beef is simply covered, and massage the beef so the baking soda and water is uniformly distributed. Set aside for 1-2 hours. This pace tenderizes (baking soda) and hydrates (water) the beef.
Adjacent, the beef must be rinsed thoroughly under running water to rid it of any excess baking soda, or you volition gustation it in the dish.
Use your hands to stir upward the beefiness during the rinsing process.
One time the h2o runs clear, bleed the beefiness thoroughly in a colander and transfer it to a bowl for the marinating procedure (details in next section).
Shortcut to Tenderize Beef at Habitation
If the process used by Chinese restaurants to tenderize beef described to a higher place sounds a bit involved and a hassle, you can still tenderize beef using an at-domicile shortcut. Baking soda is a powerful ingredient for tenderizing beef, only if too much is added, it can add an off-taste to the beef which is why beef is rinsed off after adding larger amounts of baking soda to the beef.
The solution is to add together a smaller corporeality of blistering and increment the marinating time. Adding 1/8 teaspoon to 1/iv teaspoon (for tougher cuts) of blistering soda and ane to 2 tablespoons of water to the beef and mixing and working information technology into the beefiness earlier marinating will also do a fine job tenderizing! Increase the marinating time for your beef at least xv minutes. I will likewise say that adding water to the beef is a personal selection. I feel there are merits to having a moist hydrated beefiness or a drier beef for stir fry dishes.
How to Marinate Beef for Stir-fry
Marinating beefiness for your stir-fry is an important 2nd pace of velveting that should never exist skipped. The marinade isn't as much about soaking the beef in a lot of liquid or calculation a bunch of different flavorings like y'all may be used to.
It'south about giving the beef an extra juicy texture. Take you ever tried to make a stir-fry at home, but the meat comes out dry and not at all like what you've been served in Asian restaurants? Master this marinating technique, and you'll successfully set Chinese stir-fry dishes at domicile.
After the beef has been tenderized:
1. Add oyster sauce and/or soy sauce to give your beef an extra season boost. Add together virtually 2 teaspoons of each per pound of beef.
2. Add cornstarch and oil to give the meat a velvety texture. Add near 2 teaspoons of each per pound of beefiness. The cornstarch and oil gives the beef its velvety smooth texture sealing in juices and protecting the meat during the searing or cooking. Calculation Shaoxing wine (2 teaspoons per pound) also adds flavor but is totally optional for those of yous who are strict about alcohol consumption.
3. Mix everything together and set it bated to marinate for 15-xxx minutes while you're preparing your other ingredients.
What is Chinese Velveting?
Velveting is a process used in traditional Chinese cooking to prepare meats for stir-frying. Chinese velveting techniques vary, depending upon the cutting and blazon of meat used for the dish, and also involve tenderizing, marinating and unlike cooking methods.
Through the process of velveting, meats retain their moisture and take on a soft and velvety texture that is a signature quality of Chinese cuisine. The velveting of beefiness is probably nigh common, since beef benefits more than other meats from this cooking technique.
How to Velvet Beef for Stir Fry
Velveting beef begins with the steps we take explained to a higher place (involving tenderizing the beef and so marinating it with seasonings, oil and cornstarch).
The tenderizing pace makes any beef soft and moist, while marinating the beef gives it more than umami flavor and that velvety coating you experience when eating at Chinese restaurants. Pictured beneath is the marinated beef earlier cooking.
The final pace of velveting is cooking, which really depends upon the dish you are cooking and the outcome yous're looking for.
The traditional method for velveting beef is to pass the meat through hot oil (essentially deep frying) which is literally referred to equally zǒu yóu (走油) in Mandarin or "jau yau" in Cantonese.
In almost cases, we prefer to sear the meat in a hot wok, since having a wok full of oil at home is simply not practical. That said, we think searing beef imparts more season than the jau yau deep frying method.
Some recipes, including soups, volition only crave cooking the beef in water as the final step.
And that's it! Let us know in the comments if yous have any questions!
Prep: 1 hour thirty minutes
Total: 1 hour 30 minutes
- one pound beef flank steak or chuck steak (450g, sliced against the grain)
- one teaspoon blistering soda
- h2o (1/4 cup per pound)
- two teaspoons vegetable oil
- two teaspoons oyster sauce or soy sauce
- two teaspoons cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons Shaoxing Wine (Optional)
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Add blistering soda and water to the sliced beef and massage with easily until most of the liquid is absorbed. Allow stand 1-2 hours.
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Rinse the beefiness thoroughly nether running water until the water runs clear. Drain.
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Add oil, oyster sauce/soy sauce, Shaoxing wine (optional), and cornstarch to the beef. Set aside to marinate for 15-30 minutes, and and then your beef is ready to use.
Brusk-Cutting method for Tenderizing beefiness
Add ane/eight teaspoon to 1/4 teaspoon (for tougher cuts) of baking soda and 1 to 2 tablespoons of h2o to the beef and mixing and working it into the beefiness before marinating will too do a fine job tenderizing!
Follow step three and increase the marinating time for your beef at least xv minutes.
Source: https://thewoksoflife.com/prepare-beef-for-stir-fry/
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