Healthy Cooking Tips Q&A

Tips for Making Stir fry
Question: "I have made some of the chicken stir fry dishes from the book and they taste great, but I do find them a bit dry.  Is there something I can add to change that?" - LB

Answer:  Most of what makes stir-fry you eat at a restaurant so moist is grease (from the fry pan or cheaper cuts of meat)or sauce (which adds a lot of sodium and/or sugar deppending on the sauce).  All of the recipes in Stella's Kitchen call for breast meat.  Sometimes breast meat comes with a little rib meat or fat attached, but depending on the cut or what vegetable you cook it with, it can be a little drier sometimes.

One thing you might try is marinating the meat before using it in a stirfry.
Anything "acidic" like wine or lemon juice or some oether marinade will help tenderize the meat.  Since not everyone has the time to do that, there are lots of other things you can do like;

-You can increase the amount of soy sauce if you aren't concerned with sodium -Add more vegetables. Green peppers and onions or tomatoes work great since they have so much water in them. 
-Deglaze your wok or pan with a little wine or even just plain water towards the end of cooking.  I use water all the time.
- If you abosultely  must have "gravy" type of sauce, you can make a very thin sauce by following regular recipe directions and adding ~1/3 c. of cold water mixed with about 1 & 1/2 tablespoons of oat or whole wheat flour.

- Stella

Got a Question?  Submit your questions here.