Celebrate Chinese New Year with a sizzling stir fry

Tuesday 1st February 2022

Chinese cuisine is a big part of Chinese culture and despite the fact many of the dishes are stir fried, they do tend to be very healthy too due to how fresh the ingredients are.

Most stir fries are packed with lots of vegetables, seafood, herbs and spices, and almost always enjoyed with a large circle of friends and family.

Eating is a real social occasion for Chinese communities and of course 1st February marks the start of Chinese New Year where families throughout the World celebrate with the event culminating with a lantern festival on 15th February.

Food is central to Chinese New Year with people going out to celebrate or choosing to create Chinese dishes at home. Stir frying on very high temperatures is one of the secrets to creating a delicious Chinese meal, and gas is often the preferred choice of chefs as the heat is fast and also very controllable. Chinese restaurants tend to use commercial burners but this doesn’t mean those people with gas appliances at home can’t create an authentic dish too.

From our perspective, Stir fried food always tastes best when cooked on gas rather than electric or induction hob, so here are some of our tips for safely creating a sizzling stir fry to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Six stir fry secrets for Chinese New Year

  1. Woks can be heated to high temperatures before cooking which gives the best result. Non-stick coated pans are not recommended due to the high temperatures you need to cook at.
  2. A round-bottomed wok is the traditional shape used but will need to be set on a ring to keep it stabilized and on one flame. It is unsafe to position a wok across multiple flames on a hob.
  3. Flat bottomed woks are fine for using at home and you’ll get a really good result on a normal gas stove.
  4. Cut all of your ingredients down into a small size and cook in batches remembering wetter ingredients will cool down the heat so put those into the wok right at the end, or dry as much moisture as you can with kitchen roll first.
  5. Small sized ingredients will cook quickly so stay close to the pan and get ready to switch batches as required.
  6. Keep stirring quickly for best results and tastiest stir fry!

Here’s a few of our favourite stir fry recipes: 

BBC Food - Easy Vegetable stir fry

Olive Magazine - Ginger chicken stir fry

Olive Magazine - Beef & black bean stir fry

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