Stir-Frying Some enthusiasts insist on using a wok, which is the basic Chinese cooking vessel. It is widely used all over Southeast Asia, its bottom fitting nicely into the open top of a charcoal brazier. Its shape, unchanged for centuries, is ideal for stir-frying, because food is easily turned over along its sloping sides. I find it impossible to use on an electric stove because its rounded bottom barely touches the -hot coils, making it impossible to heat it to a high enough temperature. A wok works better on a gas stove, but the fit is still not right. I am partial to nonstick skillets coated with Teflon or SilverStone because they permit stir-frying with a minimum of fat without ingredients sticking to the pan. But you can also produce perfect stir-fried dishes in a heavy cast-iron skillet, though more fat will be needed to keep foods from sticking. If you decide to use a nonstick pan, be sure to buy the largest size available to ensure that foods will not be crowded when they are being stir-fried.
In most Chinese cooking, all the pieces of food in a recipe should be cut about the same size and shape to ensure uniform cooking. Meat is sliced across the grain to make it more tender. Stir-frying requires a very hot pan and sizzling oil. When the ingredients are added there should be loud crackling and popping noises as they are briskly tossed and turned to keep them from scorching. The heat must remain high and the cook must resist any temptation to turn it down. Onions and garlic are usually stir-fried first to flavor the oil before introducing other ingredients. Cook the onion before adding the garlic, because garlic tends to burn easily. The basic process is quite simple, and the recipes are clear in stating how long each step should take. Cooking time rarely exceeds 5 minutes.
Much of the success and most of the effort required lie in the preparation. Everything you need to do for a particular dish—cutting meat and vegetables, measuring seasonings, and mixing sauces—should be carefully done ahead of time and the necessary ingredients should be placed in separate bowls within easy reach of the stove, because a delay in the cooking could lead to disappointing results. Foods are usually cooked in a certain order, those which take the longest being cooked first
A stir-fry cannot be made ahead of time, so you must be prepared to leave your guests for 5 minutes to do the cooking without interruption immediately before you sit down to eat. Each food must be cooked until it is just done and not a moment more. Vegetables must be crisp. Fish and meat must be succulent, never overdone and dry, and, needless to say, all the ingredients you use must be as fresh as possible.
A word of caution is necessary on how to avoid limp, soggy, stir-fried dishes. The smaller the quantity of food stir-fried at any one time, the better the dish will turn out. No more than a recipe for four should be attempted in one batch. If you double a recipe, cook each batch separately.
The stir-frying and steaming process results in many health benefits. The coating of food with hot oil seals in all the juices, flavor, and nutritional value of the ingredients while increasing their fiber content, and steaming removes less soluble fiber than boiling.
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Most of the nutrition data in this chapter came from the American Heart Association publications listed in the bibliography. The information in the section on garlic came from journal articles and books on garlic, which are also listed in the bibliography. The articles about the benefits of fish oils have been listed elsewhere.
Weights and Measures
Conversions, Equivalents, and Substitutions
You will find that all of the recipes given in this book are given in the American system of weights and measures, but metric equivalents are also given wherever possible. When doing your own cooking, decide which one of these two systems you are going to use—the U.S. or metric—and stick to it! The reason for this is that the conversions are only equivalent, and that the proportions will only be right within one system. The conversion and equivalent tables are given here to help you sort out the trickiest problems.
Conversions
| Solid Measures | ||||
| Ounces and Pounds to Grams and Kilograms | ||||
| Ounces | Pounds | Approximate Weight | Convenient Equivalent | Actual Weight |
| 1 oz | 30 g | 30 g | 28.35 g | |
| 2 oz | 57 g | 60 g | 56.7 g | |
| 3 oz | 85 g | 85 g | 85.05 g | |
| 4 oz | ¼ lb | 113 g | 115 g | 113.4 g |
| 5 oz | 142 g | 140 g | 141.8 g | |
| 6 oz | 171 g | 170 g | 170.1 g | |
| 7 oz | 198 g | 200 g | 198.5 g | |
| 8 oz | ½ lb | 227 g | 225 g | 226.8 g |
| 9 oz | 255 g | 255 g | 255.2 g | |
| 12 oz | ¾ lb | 340 g | 340 g | 340.2 g |
| 16 oz | 1 lb | 454 g | 450 g | 453.6 g |
| 24 oz | 1½ lb | 680 g | 680 g | 680.4 g |
| 32 oz | 2 lb | 907 g | 905 g | 907.2 g |
| 35.2 oz | 2.2 | 1 Kg | 1 Kg | 1 Kg |
The relationship between volume measures and weight measures varies depending upon the type of ingredient. For example, the weights of 1 cup of sliced fresh mushrooms (70 g), spinach leaves (100 g), chopped almonds (127 g), rice (200 g), low-fat yogurt (227 g), and skimmed milk (245 g) are radically different.
Below is a list of useful conversions of dry measures:
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