To marinate chicken for stir fries, we use a simple mixture of water, oil, cornstarch, and a flavor agent like soy sauce or oyster sauce. In my experience, most Chinese cooks do not do this. Your return on that investment just isn’t worth the trouble. We’ve seen other sources on the Internet suggest adding egg white to velveting marinades. That said, if your chicken is a bit more fibrous than usual, take care to cut across the grain, similar to slicing beef. Nobody really knows what causes it, but if you’ve ever had a stringy or tough chicken breast, you may have experienced it.
On rare occasions, you may get a tough chicken breast––a condition called “woody breast,” caused by hardened muscle fibers. In most cases, good quality chicken is already tender, which is why we don’t recommend adding any baking soda. Some restaurants use baking soda as part of their marinade (you can tell by the crunchy or snappy texture of their chicken). How’s that for a chef’s trick? The MarinadeĪll restaurants (and most home cooks) velvet their chicken before making stir-fries, fried rice, etc. Once they are firm, they are very easy to slice into uniform, perfect slices. It also protects the chicken from the hot wok, yielding juicy chicken. Velveting is the secret! It gives the chicken that silky texture, with retained moisture and flavor from the marinade. Have you ever tried stir-frying chicken, only to have it appear (and taste) dry in the finished dish? Have you ever wondered how Chinese restaurants get their chicken to be so tender and moist-looking? Velveting is an essential step when preparing chicken breast (or even dark meat) for stir-frying. Looking to make beef, pork, or shrimp instead? Check out our detailed posts on:
Chicken chop suey casserole how to#
In this post, we will teach you how to velvet chicken to yield the most tender and flavorful results for your favorite stir fries. Then, the cook adds it to a stir-fry with other ingredients. Meat or seafood is marinated and pre-cooked in oil (or sometimes poached in boiling water).
Velveting is a critical Chinese cooking technique.
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