Tender Stir Fried Beef

[Blondelle]

I've just tried stir frying some beef round cut into strips and I wound up with beef flavored shoe leather. The beef is always so juicy and tender in the stir fried dishes the Chinese restaurants serve. What is their secret?

[jhlurie]

1.) Are we sure you are using a comparable cut of meat? For one thing, I know that a lot of Chinese restaurants make a point of actually using non-Prime meat (Choice, occasionally Select) and I recall hearing at some point that this is for more than the reason that it's cheaper.

2.) Is there some kind of tenderizing going on?

[gus_tatory]

2.) Is there some kind of tenderizing going on?

←

it's done in the Chinese restaurant business, and it's called "velveting"--there was a thread on it a while back: lemme go look...

[gus_tatory]

Google search on velveting

Q: What does it mean when a chef says he/she is "velveting the chicken"?

A: When preparing stir-fried chicken dishes, Chinese chefs frequently begin by coating the chicken in a mixture of cornstarch and egg white, and then cooking it briefly in warm oil or hot water until the colour changes to white. The name comes from the fact that this process gives the chicken a velvety texture.

Edited February 18, 2005 by gus_tatory (log)

[carswell]

Did you marinate the beef after slicing? In many preps it's sliced then mixed with some combination of soy sauce, oyster sauce, rice wine, oil, garlic, ginger, cornstarch, etc. Overcooking can cause toughness, too, something very easy to do on most domestic stovetops (paradoxically because they put out many fewer BTUs than a wok station in a restaurant). But I suspect the main culprit is your cut of meat; for beef stif-fries I usually choose flank steak or skirt steak and slice it across the grain. Filet works, too, but is more expensive and less flavourful.

[jayt90]

Chinese restaurants use woks over a gas flame at a higher heat level than most amateurs (like me) would attempt. But I get better resuts when I use thin strips of beef tossed into a smoking hot wok...

[sheetz]

Chinese restaurants typically marinate the beef with some baking soda solution and use the velveting process.

[PCL]

Sodium bicarbonate, water. Breaks down stringy proteins I'm told. The velveting works well with pork strips in preserved egg soup.

[Carlovski]

Also cut across the grain of the meat.

I have had some beef in cheap chinese places that has been so heavily artificially tenderised it didn't even seem like meat any more. I think they use something more than just bicarb and velveting - some sort of commercial tenderiser (What's that enzyme in papaya?)

[gus_tatory]

(What's that enzyme in papaya?)

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it's called papain... click here...

[Ben Hong]

If you don't want to go through the hassle of velvetting or using bicarb, use a tender cut of meat like sirloin, or blade eye or rib eye or even filet. The Chinese like the "lesser" grades because those cuts ironically have the connective tissue to hold together better. Also, we Chinese like a bit of "al dente" in our meats. Always slice meat across the grain. For stir frying the worst cut of meat is the round...too dry, mealy and hard...ptui....

A hint, stirfry the meat seperately first until it just barely changes colour, take it out, stirfry your veggies, and just at the moment that you are thickening the dish, add the meat back, mix and plate. WORK FAST AT HIGHEST HEAT.

Hint ll, if you are using a domestic range, cook small portions because there is not nearly enough heat to duplicate or even approximate what a commercial kitchen can do.

[Abra]

I do velveting cuz I know it works - what I don't know is WHY it works. Is anybody here a food chemist?

[jayt90]

A hint, stirfry the meat seperately first until it just barely changes colour, take it out, stirfry your veggies, and just at the moment that you are thickening the dish, add the meat back, mix and plate. WORK FAST AT HIGHEST HEAT.

Hint ll, if you are using a domestic range, cook small portions because there is not nearly enough heat to duplicate or even approximate what a commercial kitchen can do.

←

I had problems getting a wok hot enough with domestic ranges, until I discovered the three burner patio stove, designed for camping, fuelled by propane.

It works well on my patio, providing three 30,000 BTU cast iron burners. In winter I use it in the lean-to greenhouse, but I have tested in the kitchen with a CO detector (it's safe, but insurance requires the tank to be outside.)

Many gas ranges put out 12-15000 BTU per burner, and some do not hold a wok very well.

[stephenc]

Cutting across the grain and choosing the right cut is most important.

Also, for some dishes you may want to slice thinner. Freeze the meat for a little bit in order to get thinner cuts.

[takomabaker]

I was taught to not just cut across the grain, but cutting across the grain at a sharp angle (think sliced lox) is the trick. I cut both flank steak and chicken for high heat dry cooking this way. It works wonderfully. The same chef who taught this method also suggested that in some instances, a very sharp serrated knife might work better than a chef's knife if you want your slices very thin. In class, we used flank steak and made a high heat stir-fry and the result was amazing even with no marinating or velveting. I've been a convert ever since.

[jerkhouse]

I was taught to not just cut across the grain, but cutting across the grain at a sharp angle (think sliced lox) is the trick. I cut both flank steak and chicken for high heat dry cooking this way. It works wonderfully. The same chef who taught this method also suggested that in some instances, a very sharp serrated knife might work better than a chef's knife if you want your slices very thin. In class, we used flank steak and made a high heat stir-fry and the result was amazing even with no marinating or velveting. I've been a convert ever since.

←

Of all the different stuff I've tried, the method described above produced the best results. Just throw some flank steak in the freezer for like an hour, then shave diagonally across the meat, and if you cook it hot enough for 45 seconds to a minute and remove it before cooking your other stuff, it should turn out pretty good. I wish I had come across this thread a year ago when I was going through trial and error trying to figure out the same question.

[Kim WB]

Jerkhouse, are you serving in the armed forces? That's quite an avatar..is it you?

[chefreit]

1.) Are we sure you are using a comparable cut of meat?  For one thing, I know that a lot of Chinese restaurants make a point of actually using non-Prime meat (Choice, occasionally Select) and I recall hearing at some point that this is for more than the reason that it's cheaper.

2.) Is there some kind of tenderizing going on?

←

Ok, believe it or not, I have found this works the best, 50% coca-cola , 40%

high quality soy sauce & (about) 10% Coleman’s hot mustard. I use a cheap cut of meat, sirloin butt flap, cut on a sharp angle & marinated for 24 hours. It always comes out fork tender.

Believe it or not!

Also, for tougher cuts of meat I follow the same process, however I lightly stew them in a mixture of Asian flavored broth till just tender. I store the over run in freezer bags for quick meals, fajitas, paper steak, stroganoff ect. and use the reduced broth as part of my stir-fry mixture.

[jerkhouse]

Jerkhouse, are you serving in the armed forces?  That's quite an avatar..is it you?

←

Haha, I was, but not anymore. That was taken when I was stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (I was in the Marines) a few years ago. We were pretty good friends with the Jamaican cooks at the chow hall so I used to always ask them for the paper hats like the one I'm wearing in the picture; we thought the juxtaposition of the machine gun with the goofy paper hat was pretty funny, and since it was my "chef" hat I thought it might be appropriate for Egullet. Cuba was also the source of the name Jerk House, it was a Jamaican place that had awesome Jamaican food. (there were tons of Jamaicans on base so they had their own places, etc.) Probably in my top 5 places to eat ever, and it's stuck in the middle of a military base I'll probably never visit again, but I think about it all the time.

I also just remembered that, although you can't see it, in that picture I had this crappy mustache that I grew as a joke (extreme boredom), so some people called me "Pierre" - with the hat and the mustache they thought I looked like a French chef, which is another reason that I thought to put it on here

Edited March 3, 2005 by jerkhouse (log)

[jerkhouse]

1.) Are we sure you are using a comparable cut of meat?  For one thing, I know that a lot of Chinese restaurants make a point of actually using non-Prime meat (Choice, occasionally Select) and I recall hearing at some point that this is for more than the reason that it's cheaper.

2.) Is there some kind of tenderizing going on?

←

Ok, believe it or not, I have found this works the best, 50% coca-cola , 40%

high quality soy sauce & (about) 10% Coleman’s hot mustard. I use a cheap cut of meat, sirloin butt flap, cut on a sharp angle & marinated for 24 hours. It always comes out fork tender.

Believe it or not!

Also, for tougher cuts of meat I follow the same process, however I lightly stew them in a mixture of Asian flavored broth till just tender. I store the over run in freezer bags for quick meals, fajitas, paper steak, stroganoff ect. and use the reduced broth as part of my stir-fry mixture.

←

I tried this with great results with $2.50/lb shoulder steak; it was easily as tender as more expensive cuts of meat. The only problem is that it was way too salty. I used kikkoman low sodium soy sauce because I expected the 24 hr marinade to add some significant sodium to the meat, but it was still just too salty. What kind of soy sauce do you typically use? I have a hard time picking stuff out at the asian market because there are about 10,000 varieties and I can't tell what's good and what's crap.

Anyway, I've got a few more of the shoulder steaks left because they came in a four pack; next time I'm going to do 24 hours in coke, and add the soy sauce 30 minutes or an hour before I cook it; I will report back. Overall though, I am very impressed with the tenderizing effect; it turns out like flank steak but for a third the price.

[chefreit]

1.) Are we sure you are using a comparable cut of meat?  For one thing, I know that a lot of Chinese restaurants make a point of actually using non-Prime meat (Choice, occasionally Select) and I recall hearing at some point that this is for more than the reason that it's cheaper.

2.) Is there some kind of tenderizing going on?

←

Ok, believe it or not, I have found this works the best, 50% coca-cola , 40%

high quality soy sauce & (about) 10% Coleman’s hot mustard. I use a cheap cut of meat, sirloin butt flap, cut on a sharp angle & marinated for 24 hours. It always comes out fork tender.

Believe it or not!

Also, for tougher cuts of meat I follow the same process, however I lightly stew them in a mixture of Asian flavored broth till just tender. I store the over run in freezer bags for quick meals, fajitas, paper steak, stroganoff ect. and use the reduced broth as part of my stir-fry mixture.

1) House of Tsang (it think that’s how it is spelled)

This is a though cut of meat! I would use the method below. Also, I would leave the cut whole until cooking. In either case, don’t forget lots of fresh garlic, and a touch of oregano.

Also, for tougher cuts of meat I follow the same process, however I lightly stew them in a mixture of Asian flavored broth till just tender. I store the over run in freezer bags for quick meals, fajitas, paper steak, stroganoff ect. and use the reduced broth as part of my stir-fry mixture.

←

I tried this with great results with $2.50/lb shoulder steak; it was easily as tender as more expensive cuts of meat. The only problem is that it was way too salty. I used kikkoman low sodium soy sauce because I expected the 24 hr marinade to add some significant sodium to the meat, but it was still just too salty. What kind of soy sauce do you typically use? I have a hard time picking stuff out at the asian market because there are about 10,000 varieties and I can't tell what's good and what's crap.

Anyway, I've got a few more of the shoulder steaks left because they came in a four pack; next time I'm going to do 24 hours in coke, and add the soy sauce 30 minutes or an hour before I cook it; I will report back. Overall though, I am very impressed with the tenderizing effect; it turns out like flank steak but for a third the price.

←

[carswell]

Bet I'm not the only one who finds this thread bringing back memories of high school science fairs. There was always at least one project showing how small pieces of meat left in Coke would dissolve. Looks like chefreit's recipe uses the same process; it just doesn't carry it to the extreme.