Stir-fry order: slowest first
Stir-fry ingredients cook at different speeds, so order matters. Garlic and ginger flavor the oil in seconds. Dense vegetables like carrots take longest, leafy greens need almost nothing, and the sauce goes in last.
Add the sauce last
Soy sauce, sugar and other liquids make the pan wetter and cooler, and the sugar can scorch. Add the sauce when the vegetables are almost done, so it coats and reduces in seconds. Too early, and your stir-fry turns into a simmer.
Test yourself
Questions from the interactive lesson, with the answer and the why.
When do carrots and broccoli stems go into the pan compared with leafy greens?
Earlier, because they take longer to cook. Dense vegetables need more time, while greens wilt in seconds.
True or false: Sauce goes in late in a stir-fry, because its water and sugar cool the pan and can scorch.
True. Sauce water cools the pan and its sugar can scorch, so the sauce goes in near the end.
What went wrong? You pour the sauce in first, then add the vegetables. The carrots stay hard while the greens go limp.
The sauce cooled the wok, so the vegetables simmered unevenly. Adding sauce first stops searing and cooks everything unevenly.
Fill the blank: Dense vegetables such as carrots go in ___ leafy greens because they take longer to cook.
Dense vegetables such as carrots go in before leafy greens because they take longer to cook. More time in the pan lets dense pieces cook through.
When does the sauce go into a stir-fry?
Near the end, once the vegetables are almost cooked. It coats and reduces fast without cooling the pan early.
