No. 109 - Chao and Bao

I made stir fry for dinner last night. Well, I didn't make it myself entirely. My son helped me get the vegetables ready. And it didn't take long to prepare since my wife found some fresh prepackaged stir fry vegetables at Wegmans. That store has everything!

It was pretty tasty but I was a bit disappointed that I didn't season it more. I thought for sure that the soy sauce, garlic and ginger would give it enough flavor without adding anything extra. Not so. But now I know for next time.

I learned today that there are two techniques for stir frying food: chao and bao.

The chao technique is the one I used and would be compared to sauteing. It's the one where you heat the wok to a very high temperature and then cook the meat first, set it aside, cook the vegetables, then toss it all together at the end. In this technique the food can be stirred or tossed and a lid may be added for a short time to steam the food at the end.

I'm not even sure I could do the bao technique if I tried. It might at least require a different wok than the one I use. In this technique the wok is super-heated to a temperature of 1200 degrees Fahrenheit. You supposedly know when it hits this temperature because the wok glows a dull red color. The idea here is that the oil, the seasonings, and the vegetables are added in rapid succession and cooked very quickly. The food is tossed continuously stopping only briefly to add the ingredients.