How to avoid soggy stir-fry vegetables

Erica Marcus | Burning Questions

April 30, 2008

Why are my vegetable stir-fries always watery? When I order stir-fries in Chinese restaurants, the vegetables are perfectly cooked, and there's no liquid at the bottom of the plate.

I'm guessing here, but I'll bet it's because you haven't got a professional range in your kitchen. At Chinese restaurants, chefs cook over burners that generate anywhere from 80,000 to 150,000 Btus of heat. The average home range musters 8,000 to 14,000 Btus.

There are, however, some techniques the home cook can use to help overcome this pitiable lack of heat.

Obviously, you should use the hottest burner you have for stir-fries, and keep it turned up as high as it will go. Let your pan heat up for a couple of minutes before you start cooking. Heat it up dry and add the oil just before you add the food, otherwise the oil will burn.

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All pans are not equally fit for stir-frying. Grace Young, the Chinese cooking expert whose most recent cookbook was "The Breath of a Wok" (Simon & Schuster, $35), suggests home cooks use a 14-inch flat-bottomed wok made of heavy-gauge carbon steel.

I've found that a 12-inch cast-iron skillet also works well for stir-frying.

(A Lodge 12-inch skillet can be had for about $20 at just about any hardware store and it will last longer than you or your stove.) Cast iron is a great conductor of heat, and because there's just so much cast iron in your average skillet, it retains the heat. When you add your cool vegetables to a cast-iron pan, the pan barely loses any heat. When you add cool vegetables to a flimsy stainless-steel pan, however, it will immediately cool down, and then take a few minutes to get hot again.

Don't try to stir-fry in nonstick pans (they can't take high heat) or in pans with high, narrow sides, as this will discourage evaporation.

Evaporation is another key to successful stir-frying. Vegetables are

mostly water. As you heat them, the water seeps out. If that water can't evaporate, you will wind up with a soggy stir-fry.

To this same end, make sure your vegetables are completely dry before you cook them; otherwise they will steam in their own moisture. Spin them in a salad spinner, and then pat them dry with a towel.

And don't try to stir-fry too many vegetables at one time or, again, they will steam. Young recommends that you not cook more than 4 cups of vegetables in a 14-inch wok. If you are using a conventional skillet, the vegetables should all fit in one layer with room to move around.

You got too many vegetables? Cook them one at a time (one species at a time, that is, not one vegetable): For example, cook the broccoli, then set it aside, then move on to the green beans, then the zucchini. When everything is cooked, put it all back in the pan for an integrative whirl.

Many green vegetables take well to

a pre-stir-fry blanching. Drop green beans or broccoli florets or chopped broccoli rabe into salted boiling water for a few minutes until just tender. Drain and, if you are not using them immediately, "shock" them in cold water and then pat dry. I almost always blanch leafy Asian greens such as bok choy or choy sum before stir-frying them.

Finally, to eliminate any moisture that may have crept in, despite your best efforts, use a slotted spoon to transfer the stir-fry to the serving platter.

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