We always give crucial details in all of our recipes, including cooking and cook, but I thought it was time to write a station focused on preparing beef by rights for the wok !
What Cut of Beef is Best for Stir-fry?
Flank steak is by far the most popular cut of meat used by chinese restaurants in all of their stir-fry dishes. It besides happens to be the most commend geld of gripe we use in our stir-fry recipes.
Reading: How to Prepare Beef for Stir-fry
Flank steak is flavorful, sanely priced, and promptly available. With its intense beefy spirit, all you need to do is make sure you slice and marinate it by rights to make a bang-up stir-fry. For $ 6.99 to $ 8.99 a impound, it won ’ triiodothyronine break the savings bank either .
Boneless gripe chow steak is a more economic choice for beef stir fries. We like using beef chow steak for stewing and braising because of the extra fat 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 besides more economic than flank steak. You can buy a bombastic assemble, piece it, divide it into portions for several stir-fries, and freeze it !
A short more trimming and care is required to prepare the beef vomit steak for stir fry. Cut along the fatty lines and remove the compact membrane to get some neat chunks of gripe for slicing. Use a good chef ’ s tongue and as constantly, be careful when working with abrupt knives !
How to Cut Beef For Stir-fry
If using flank steak, trim off any white muscle membranes, and cut your flank steak along the grain lengthwise into 2 to 2 1/2 column inch strips .
It ’ south easy to identify the long grains of muscleman fiber in flank steak. When slicing the flank steak into little pieces, piece against the grain ( perpendicular to the long lines of muscleman ) .
Make each slit 1/4″ thick––each assemble will be tender and bite-sized .
nowadays your gripe is quick for marinating !
If using boneless gripe chuck, check out our instructions for how to slice it below. If not, skip down to the future section .
Cutting Boneless Beef Chuck for Stir-fry
Cutting meat against the grain is very authoritative to yield decent offer pieces in your stir-fry dishes .
again, the “ grain ” refers to the hanker strands of muscleman running through the beef analogue to each other. Cutting against the grain means cutting across those strands, so the long strands of muscleman can be made shorter to create small, tender pieces .
It ’ s much harder to identify how the grain runs in beef vomit than for flank steak. In this photograph, you can see the blueprint of kernel and fat where the grain runs vertically .
Since we have to cut cross-wise to the granulate, for this nibble, we need to cut the long denude into 2-inch wide-eyed chunks foremost .
And then position each while to cut them so the farseeing fibers are cut short .
See how the knife is positioned where it will cut the beef against the granulate ?
now, cut your gripe into 1/4″ thick slices
You can see the grain and the slice a act clear in this photograph, but you can imagine that the soft gripe can be unmanageable to handle and slice .
A chef ’ s secret to slicing beef quickly is to freeze the kernel partially for 30 to 60 minutes until it is firm. This makes slicing much easier and faster, as the firm gripe does not slide under your tongue and around the cutting board. Partially flash-frozen kernel besides allows you to be more precise in cutting to your craved thickness .
How to Cut Beef for Lo Mein & Other Noodle Dishes
If using gripe for noodle dishes or dishes like Beef and Pepper Stir Fry, an extra step to slice gripe into thin strips ( julienne ) is required .
In taiwanese stir-fry cook, the way ingredients are cut should be consistent with each early. rectangular slices of gripe are used for stir-fries with vegetables like beef and broccoli or gripe and bean curd. Long strands of noodles like you have in Beef Lo Mein require beef to be cut into alike long thin strips .
Beef fried rice requires little chunks of meat to go with the small grains of rice. Make smell ?
How Chinese Restaurants Tenderize Beef
It ’ sulfur time to partake some taiwanese restaurant secrets on how to tenderize gripe. Tenderizing your beef is the first gear footfall of the traditional process of velveting gripe practiced by about all chinese chefs .
taiwanese restaurant chefs take some extra steps in preparing gripe for their stir-fry dishes .
The first footstep is to add a estimable measure of baking sodium carbonate to the beef––about 1 rounded teaspoon per pound of gripe .
adjacent, add 1/4 cup water ( per pound of gripe ) or until the gripe is just covered, and massage the gripe so the broil sodium carbonate and water is uniformly distributed. Set away for 1-2 hours. This step tenderizes ( baking sodium carbonate ) and hydrates ( water ) the beef .
next, the beef must be rinsed thoroughly under running water to rid it of any surfeit bake sodium carbonate, or you will taste it in the smasher .
Use your hands to stir up the gripe during the rinsing process .
once the body of water runs well-defined, drain the gripe thoroughly in a colander and transfer it to a bowl for the marinade process ( details in adjacent department ) .
Shortcut to Tenderize Beef at Home
If the process used by chinese restaurants to tenderize gripe described above sounds a morsel involved and a fuss, you can distillery tenderize beef using an at-home shortcut. Baking pop is a powerful component for tenderizing gripe, but if excessively much is added, it can add an off-taste to the gripe which is why gripe is rinsed off after adding larger amounts of baking sodium carbonate to the beef .
The solution is to add a smaller total of bake and increase the marinade time. Adding 1/8 teaspoon to 1/4 teaspoon ( for tougher cuts ) of baking pop and 1 to 2 tablespoons of water to the beef and mix and working it into the beef before marinade will besides do a fine speculate tenderizing ! Increase the marinade time for your beef at least 15 minutes. I will besides say that adding water to the gripe is a personal choice. I feel there are merits to having a damp hydrated gripe or a drier beef for stir electrocute dishes .
How to Marinate Beef for Stir-fry
Marinating gripe for your stir-fry is an authoritative 2nd dance step of velveting that should never be skipped. The marinade international relations and security network ’ t a much about soaking the gripe in a bunch of liquid or adding a crowd of unlike flavorings like you may be used to .
It ’ south about giving the beef an extra fat texture. Have you ever tried to make a stir-fry at home, but the kernel comes out dry and not at all like what you ’ ve been served in asian restaurants ? passkey this marinade technique, and you ’ ll successfully prepare chinese stir-fry dishes at home .
After the beef has been tenderized :
1. Add huitre sauce and/or soy sauce sauce to give your beef an supernumerary season boost. Add about 2 teaspoons of each per lebanese pound of beef .
2. Add cornstarch and oil to give the meat a velvet texture. Add about 2 teaspoons of each per hammer of gripe. The cornstarch and oil gives the beef its velvet smooth texture sealing in juices and protecting the kernel during the searing or cook. Adding Shaoxing wine ( 2 teaspoons per beat ) besides adds season but is wholly optional for those of you who are rigorous about alcohol pulmonary tuberculosis .
3. Mix everything together and set it aside to marinate for 15-30 minutes while you ’ ra preparing your early ingredients .
What is Chinese Velveting?
Velveting is a process used in traditional chinese fudge to prepare meats for stir-frying. chinese velveting techniques vary, depending upon the cut and type of kernel used for the serve, and besides involve tender, marinating and different cook methods .
Through the procedure of velveting, meats retain their moisture and take on a soft and velvet texture that is a signature quality of chinese cuisine. The velveting of beef is credibly most common, since gripe benefits more than other meats from this cook technique .
How to Velvet Beef for Stir Fry
Velveting beef begins with the steps we have explained above ( involving tenderizing the beef and then marinating it with seasonings, petroleum and cornstarch ) .
The tender step makes any gripe easy and damp, while marinating the gripe gives it more umami season and that velvet coating you experience when eating at chinese restaurants. Pictured below is the marinade gripe before cook .
The last gradation of velveting is cooking, which actually depends upon the smasher you are cooking and the consequence you ’ ra looking for .
The traditional method acting for velveting beef is to pass the meat through hot anoint ( basically deep frying ) which is literally referred to as zǒu yóu ( 走油 ) in Mandarin or “ jau yau ” in Cantonese .
In most cases, we prefer to sear the kernel in a hot wok, since having a wok wax of anoint at home is merely not virtual. That said, we think searing beef imparts more relish than the jau yau deeply frying method .
Some recipes, including soups, will only require cooking the gripe in water system as the final step .
And that ’ s it ! Let us know in the comments if you have any questions !
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How to Prepare Beef for Stir-fry
Learn how to prepare beef for stir-fry just like professional chefs do in Chinese restaurant kitchens. We’ll show you how select, cut, and marinate beef for your wok!
serves:
4
Prep:
1
hour
30
minutes
Total:
1
hour
30
minutes
Ingredients
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▢
1 pound beef flank steak or chow steak ( 450g, sliced against the grain )
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▢
1 teaspoon baking pop
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water ( 1/4 cup per ram )
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2 teaspoons vegetable oil
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2 teaspoons oyster sauce or soy sauce
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2 teaspoons cornstarch
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2 teaspoons Shaoxing Wine ( Optional )
Instructions
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Add baking soda and water to the sliced beef and massage with hands until most of the liquid is absorbed. Let stand 1-2 hours.
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Rinse the beef thoroughly under 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 then your beef is ready to use.
Tips & Notes:
Short-Cut method acting for Tenderizing gripe
Add 1/8 teaspoon to 1/4 teaspoon ( for tougher cuts ) of baking pop and 1 to 2 tablespoons of water to the beef and mix and working it into the gripe before marinade will besides do a finely job tender !
Follow step 3 and increase the marinade time for your beef at least 15 minutes .
nutritional info disclaimer
Read more: The Best Baked Buffalo Wings Recipe
TheWoksofLife.com is written and produced for informational purposes entirely. While we do our best to provide nutritional information as a general guidepost to our readers, we are not attest nutritionists, and the values provided should be considered estimates. Factors such as brands purchased, natural variations in fresh ingredients, etc. will change the nutritional information in any recipe. versatile on-line calculators besides provide different results, depending on their sources. To obtain accurate nutritional information for a recipe, use your favored nutriment calculator to determine nutritional information with the actual ingredients and quantities used .
