How can I prepare left over Stir Fry for the fridge?

Question

I like making Stir Fry and I've tried several times to make two meal's worth so I can refrigerate half and take it to work, but so far every attempt has been sub-bar. It's veggie stir fry and I use a variety of sauces (most of which involve soy sauce) and a little vegetable oil.

The problem is mostly the sauce; I can't seem to drain it out, so it builds up at the bottom and gets nasty, or at the least it smells very strongly by the next day. I can't strain out the liquid from the bottom of my Wok very well and even after separating out the portion to be refrigerated I can't quite strain it; the sauce is there but just thick enough to not drain off.

Is there anything I can do to properly drain out the excess sauce or is there some method I can use to make sure the extra portion is edible, at least for a day? I know it's not going to be half as good, but it's completely inedible after a night in the fridge.

Asked by Ben Brocka

Answer

I make stir fry all the time and do the same thing as you. I would make extra, enough for 2 - 3 meals.

The thing I do to prevent the vegetables from getting too mushy in the refrigerator is by cooking the stirfry about 75%(I make sure if I am doing this that the meat is fully cooked first) and then take out the portion that I intend to refrigerate. This allows me to either finish cooking it in the microwave if I am taking it to work or reheat it up in the stove if I am staying home.

Also since I am taking the portions from the upper part of the stirfry, there is less sauce that the vegetables will be steeping in so that should solve your problem of too much sauce.

Another thing you should remember is that the types of vegetables you use makes a big difference. If you choose all vegetables that turns really soft when cooked(onion, squash, peppers) then reheated stirfry using those vegetables will be not as unpalatable. The trick is to use a variety of textured vegetables.

Also I dont want to state the obvious but if your problem is your sauce, have you ever tried using a different(lighter) sauce recipe?

Answered by Jay

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How can I tell when ground beef is fully cooked?

Question

So, how do you know that the ground beef is fully cooked when you are stir frying it on a sauce pan ?

Asked by hasan

Answer

Ground beef cooks quite fast. It doesn't need more than 5 minutes (depending on the base of your pan and the amount of meat of course). Just take a piece and rip/cut it open. If it's brown inside, and not red or pink, it's fully cooked.

Answered by Mien

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Can I freeze stir-fry vegetables?

Question

I have been buying pre-cut and prepped stir-fry veggies at Trader Joe's and I was wondering if I could freeze my own bags of veggies. Would there be any issues with cutting up stir-fry veggies and freezing them in a conventional home freezer? Are there any veggies that do not freeze well to stay away from? Are there some that work especially well?

Asked by anton2g

Answer

You will have the best results if you prep by cutting and blanching prior to freezing. This should ensure that moisture content in the veggies does less damage over time in the freezer and improve color duration. I find it helpful to freeze vegetables separately rather than as mixes as you can always grab from multiple bags, but you can't unmix mixed vegetables without more work.

The majority of vegetables for stir-fry (e.g. broccoli, peas, etc) will freeze well enough, the ones in your freezer aisle obviously freeze a bit better than others. If a vegetable has a high water content (i.e. lettuce, which I hope you aren't stir-frying with) that is more integral to its structure than the cellulose it is likelier to burst cell walls in freezing; these vegetables are better to avoid.

Answered by mfg

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Stir-frying: how much of the oil evaporates?

Question

When you're stir-frying or sauteeing, I'm sure some of the oil get evaporated due to high temperature. How much of the original oil evaporates? Since I suppose it depends on the kind of oil, temperature and duration, can you give example for several typical cases? (for example, vegetable oil, medium heat, 15 minutes, etc)

How does this affect the nutrition and energy calculation? For example if 50 grams of vegetable oil contains ~400 kcal, how much calories does some food cooked with that much oil has?

Asked by Fitri

Answer

The boiling point of most cooking oils is much higher than their smoke points. The boiling point of olive oil, for example, is around 300°C (572°F), which is hotter than the temperature of a pan on a typical residential range/cooktop. With that said, alcohols and esters which make up the flavor and fragrance of the oil will have lower boiling points and will therefore evaporate. That should not significantly alter the nutritional content of the oil. Furthermore, much of the perceived loss of oil is likely due to a combination of absorption of the oil into the items being fried, and also due to splatter. The latter cannot be easily quantified due to its connection with the cooking vessel and the technique of the cook.

Answered by ESultanik

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What is a suitable Low carb rice alternative?

Question

For the first time since i started dieting, I'm making a stir fry dish for dinner. Usually, I include white rice with the finished product to absorb some of the sauce and provide that fluffy texture.

What is a low carb, or even carb free, alternative I can use that provide a similar texture and absorbent quality?

Answer

Quinoa. I only recently discovered it as part of doing P90X, and man, it's so, so delicious. It's kind of a nutty flavour that goes really well with sauces. It's also pretty high in protein, which is good.

Note that this isn't "no-carb", though it is lower in carbs than rice.

It's important that you wash quinoa before you prepare it. Otherwise, it's prepared in a very similar way, 2-1 water-to-quinoa, boiled and simmered.

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Stir fry sauce quantity

Question

I am trying to create written instructions for making stir fry for some rather inexperienced cooks to follow. One dilemma that I'm having is describing the amount of sauce to use. How would you quantify the best ratio of sauce to vegetables? For instance, how many cups of sauce to coat 10lbs of vegetables?

If we were going to keep the sauce to reuse at a later date, I would just make a big batch and then having the cooks use their judgement on how much to use. We can't really keep the sauce, however, and I'm not sure I necessarily trust the cooks' judgement either (sadly!)

Answer

The "best" ratio of sauce depends on:

1. The type of vegetables;
2. The type of sauce;
3. The quantity of solid food;
4. Time spent cooking;
5. Personal preference.

I've made some stir fries with no sauce at all (technically a stir-fry only needs oil) and some with extra sauce, particularly if they're intended to be eaten with bland white rice. I know you say you can't trust their judgment, but to some degree, you're really going to have to, because there are too many variables to pin it down to a golden ratio.

At the end of the day you're trying to get an even coat on the vegetables (or meat, or whatever) - the thickness of that is again dependent on personal preference. But even if you make that decision for them, the main ratio affecting the end result isn't based on the weight of the food, or even its volume - it's based on surface area, which is nigh on impossible to measure and guaranteed to be inconsistent between specific preparations.

Stir-fry sauce is extremely cheap to make. It's pennies per cup. If you make too much, you can always cook it down, so if you have to pick a number, it's better to err on the side of caution and make too much as opposed to too little. You can always supplement the real sauce with soy sauce, teriyaki, etc., but that's not the same as a proper stir-fry sauce thickened with tapioca and flavoured with sesame oil and so on.

So pick a number that seems a little high, and instruct the cooks to let it reduce if it seems watery. They'll be using high heat, so it won't take long to reduce, and the net effect is positive anyway (a stickier, more flavourful sauce).

Personally, I always find 1 generous cup of sauce to be more than enough for a standard-size (14") wok filled with meat and vegetables, assuming it's the kind of stir-fry that you want to be reasonably "saucy", and also assuming it is thickened properly; if you dump a full cup of pure soy sauce in there, you'll just end up with vegetable soup. I literally use a coffee mug and never measure any of the ingredients, and the difference between one preparation and the next isn't particularly noticeable.

So start with that as a guideline and test the recipe yourself, if you can. Unless you have extremely precise control over the quantity and quality of the raw ingredients in addition to a precise and well-tested sauce recipe, you won't be able to come up with a reliable ratio. It's not a question of trust, just practicality; Asian cooking is (at least in my experience) very loosey-goosey and doesn't lend itself well to precise recipes - or inexperienced cooks.

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What does adding dark rum give to a fajita stir-fry?

Question

I'm looking at a recipe for a fajita stir-fry that includes an optional 2 tbsp of dark rum. The introduction for the recipe mentions,

Latin spices combined with the optional kick of dark Jamaican rum make an interesting marriage of flavors.

What does the rum offer to the recipe? I ask because I'm not sure I want to buy a whole bottle of dark rum just for one recipe.

Answer

In the Caribbean and other Rum producing areas, you find Rum in all sorts of recipes

It is sometimes an unusual flavour pairing, but not necessarily bad. In savoury cooking it adds a semi-burnt sweetness, more like toffee or butterscotch than straight Rum

Caribbean and Mexican cooking is well blended and harmonious with many common ingredients (chilli, coriander, avocado etc.)

Considering the popularity of spicy jerk meat and Rum, the Rum Fajitas would be an interesting experiment

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How much oil should you use when stir frying a single portion?

Question

I stir fry several times a week. When I do I do each portion seperately, made to order.

How much oil should I use? How do I figure out how much oil to use for each portion since some are bigger than others, i.e. I stir fry much less for a portion for my 5 year old daugher.

Answer

Use about 2-3tbsp for a 'normal portion', and reduce that by the same factor as you reduce the portion for your daughter, e.g. if your daughter's portion is half the size, use 1tbsp.

Remember you can always add oil, but you can't take it away (not easily anyway), so err on the side of caution and whack a bit more in if it seems necessary.

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