Easy Stir-Fried Chicken With Ginger and Scallions Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How to stir fry chicken so it's tender? ›

Home Cook Method (fast and easy): A popular Chinese chicken stir fry marinade method is to combine a small amount of baking soda, starch, and oil and marinate for 10-15 minutes. Stir-fry in a hot wok for meat that's tender inside and crispy outside.

1) Marinate the chicken in water, wine, or other liquids for up to an hour before cooking. This will tenderize the meat and add flavor. 2) Slowly cook the chicken on low heat with a lid on top for about 15-20 minutes per pound of chicken. The lid prevents the chicken from drying out too much.

If you're a fan of ginger [1] and onions, you might just might find yourself putting ginger scallion oil on pretty much everything. Ginger scallion oil is simple to make at home (though it does require fresh, high-quality ingredients), and can last in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

If the meat isn't tender, the pieces will become tough and chewy from being cooked too fast. Maintaining a tender and juicy dish is a key component of stir-frying. If you have difficulty cooking meats like chicken that are prone to drying out, you can soak them in a marinating liquid for a few minutes.

How do Chinese Restaurants tenderise chicken? There are actually a few different ways to tenderise chicken the Chinese restaurant way: marinating in a cornstarch/cornflour sludge then deep frying or blanching in water before proceeding to cook in the stir fry.

The secret is tenderising the meat. It's called velveting beef. Your cheerful local Chinese restaurant is using economical stewing beef to make stir fries with ultra tender strips of beef by tenderising it!

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The first is to cook your protein and your vegetable separately, and combine them only after both are fully cooked. A second rule of thumb for stir-frying: Choose one vegetable per stir-fry. Finally, always remember to add liquid only after everything is more or less finished cooking.

The sauce is made with peeled and finely chopped fresh ginger, light soy sauce, and rice vinegar. All ingredients are available at well-assorted supermarkets or Asian grocery stores. Ginger is a root and oddly shaped with lots of nooks and crannies.

This ginger scallion sauce is super easy to put together. Just throw all the ingredients (cilantro, mint, fresh ginger, garlic, rice vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, ground coriander and salt) in a food processor and whirr away until everything is coarsely pureed.

How do Chinese get chicken so soft? ›

Whisk together egg white, vinegar, cornstarch, and salt in a large bowl until smooth. Add sliced chicken; mix to coat thoroughly. Cover with plastic wrap and marinate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Velveting is the secret! It gives the chicken that silky texture, with retained moisture and flavor from the marinade. It also protects the chicken from the hot wok, yielding juicy chicken.

Brines and marinades help tenderize the meat by bringing more moisture in the protein. With that extra moisture, you lose less when you cook.

Dry brine the chicken for juiciness.

Dry brine (meaning salt) the chicken itself first. You can do this overnight in the fridge or for just 30 minutes before coating and frying the chicken at room temperature.

The best tenderizer though, is a salted yogurt marinade. The salt has the same effect as in a regular brine, but the lactic acid in the yogurt further tenderizes the meat. A 15-minute marinade with one cup of yogurt and one teaspoon of salt makes for the most tender chicken breasts imaginable.

There are several ways to velvet, but at its most basic level, it involves marinating meat with at least one ingredient that will make it alkaline. This is what tenderizes the meat, especially cheaper, tougher cuts. “People go for either egg white or baking soda as they are both alkaline ingredients.