Frying tonight

  As you remember from yesterday, I'm going to get you up and running with a bit of stir frying. If you've never done it before I'm happy to tell you it's really easy and once you've done it a couple of times, you'll notice your confidence builds really quickly. You'll need a big frying pan or a wok, a big stirring implement and almost any sort of hob except an induction cooker. What? You have an induction cooker? Oh well, well I'm sure you'll manage fine. Regarding the stirring implement, if the surface of your pan/wok is non-stick, use a plastic or wooden utensil. If it's bare metal then you can use something metal.

  You're going to love this because once you get the idea of stir frying, you'll see it has loads of applications besides just knocking up a plate of stir fried rice. We're getting ahead of ourselves though, let's go back and start at the beginning. The first thing you need to decide is what you're going to stir fry and, especially if you've not done it before, I suggest a vegetable stir fry.

  If you saw the video I posted yesterday, you'll remember it only takes a couple of minutes to make a stir fry, especially if the gas flame on your hob is like the main jet on the space shuttle. Even with that much heat, you'll need to cut your vegetables up nice and small. One property of some stir fries is that though the vegetables hot, they are still lovely and crunchy so small pieces or strips are your aim.

All the tools you'll need.

  As a guide, pretty much any veg work except root vegetables, (potatoes, parsnips, turnips etc, though carrots are ok.) (Actually, I could be talking gibberish, but off the top of my head it's a pretty good guide. If you're not sure though, just give it a go and see what happens.) To get you started, go find anything from this list; onions, mushrooms, carrots, bean sprouts, cabbage, peppers, courgette, mange tout or baby sweetcorn and throw it in.

  Today I'm going to walk you right to the edge and tomorrow we're going to dive in when you're fully prepared. At its most basic, the technique is this. Get your ingredients all around you including seasoning and then start frying. However, the seasoning is a very important part of it so let's finish with talking about this.

  You might just add a sprinkle of soya sauce but you may be feeling more adventurous and if so, this is where you can really make a difference. To speed things along, mix up your seasoning as part of your prep then all you do is throw it in just before you serve up, confident that all the flavours are already balanced. Think of your seasoning as a dressing for a hot salad. To get you started, possible ingredients for you to use are soya sauce, toasted sesame oil, chilli, garlic, ginger, lime juice or anything else you want to try. Your homework, (yes, I know it's a bank holiday but this is for pleasure), is to mix up and taste your dressing ready for your stir fry. Enjoy!

Kirk out

RevoltingFood.com