How do you cook… stir fry?

At its most basic, all a stir fry involves is throwing ingredients in a frying pan and, er, stirring. But there's actually much more to it.

Stir fry is a quick and mostly healthy dinner dish which is as good for a fast midweek meal as it is for a lazy Sunday when you can’t be bothered to visit the shops.

There are so many things you could put into your pan though.

Meat and veg

Firstly, what type of meat – if any – are you going for? Stir fry is a great way to use up leftover chicken and beef scraps, but you can omit meat entirely for a healthier meal and just fry up vegetables.

The question that follows that statement is: which vegetables? Onions, bell peppers and mushrooms seem to be a must in most stir fries, but what colour of onion, which bell peppers, and what variety of mushroom?

Moving on to the more exotic options, there’s baby corn, mangetout, water chestnuts and beansprouts alongside Tenderstem broccoli and the smelly Tianjin preserved vegetable found in Oriental supermarkets – use it very sparingly, but it can give your meal a lovely authentic flavour. Would you even enjoy the fruity tang of Pink Lady apples or other fruit in your stir fry as in this recipe?

Cashew nuts, or even unsalted peanuts, can also work very nicely here. They are good ways of getting some extra protein into the meal. Are there any other nuts that are good to chuck in a stir fry?

Which spices?

You don’t want to be labouring chopping up loads of hard-to-find herbs and spices, as that would slow down what is ideally a quickly prepared meal. However, you should probably take the time to dice a little ginger and garlic – or use dried if you’re really rushing.

Do you add chilli to your stir fries? Five-spice powder? Or any other unusual ingredients? This heady, fragrant Thai pork stir fry calls for galangal, ginger and Thai basil – how does that sound to you?

Sauces

Generally, a splash of soy sauce is required to enhance the umami flavours of this dish, but fish or oyster sauce can work to complement this further. For those curious, there is such a thing as vegetarian ‘oyster’ sauce, which is made with mushrooms. It’s a decent substitute for the real thing if you don’t eat oysters.

You can also go the whole hog and prepare your own Sichuan-style sauce like Jeremy Pang does in this recipe.

Pomegranate molasses can add a lovely fruity tang to your vegetables, but it’s not an easy ingredient to find, nor is it cheap. For such a fast meal, is it worth adding a splash of this?

Rice or noodles?

Finally, what do you serve your stir fries with? The choice between rice and noodles springs to mind but it’s not so simple: brown or white rice, fresh or dried egg noodles – or do you ditch the decision and eat rice noodles?

What’s the best way to cook a stir fry? Let us know your methods and secret ingredients in the Comments below.

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