Velvetering, a Chinese culinary technique, tenderizes lean meat. Here it is suitable for home-cooked meals, every night of the week.
The velvety softening tenderizes the chicken before it is stir-fried with vegetables in a savory sauce.Linda Xiao for DailyExpertNews. Food stylist: Judy Kim.
The chicken pieces in chef Elmo Han's kung pao are so remarkably tender that when the teeth meet the meat, the poultry offers little resistance. The dish he serves at Shanghai Terrace, a fine dining restaurant in the Peninsula Chicago Hotel, is a faithful interpretation of the classic, but notable because it features chicken breast instead of thighs. White meat can quickly dry out in less capable hands and harden into shoe leather.
Like many Chinese chefs, Mr. Han uses a simple method of marinating and pressure cooking that can make lean meat and seafood silky smooth: it's called velveting. Think stir-fried broccoli beef, where the sauce coats the meat instead of just covering it. Velvet is the reason. Without it, “the sauce will fall off the pieces and taste bland,” Mr. Han said. “It helps the sauce adhere to the ingredients.”
In “Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge,” the definitive book on stir-frying, author Grace Young wrote, “No other cooking technique produces such light, delicate, tender juiciness.” The process begins with marinating sliced meat and seafood in a protective layer of cornstarch, egg whites and spices. After the meat is blanched with a quick dip in hot oil or boiling water, the drained pieces are coated with a gel-like barrier, providing an extra level of tenderness in the finished dish.
While chefs in restaurant kitchens opt for hot oil, the method works just as well with boiling water. Even cuts of meat such as chicken breast become extremely juicy when marinated and immersed in bubbling water. Velveting does the heavy lifting in this lightning-quick stir-fry, tenderizing the chicken before tossing it with vegetables in a savory sauce of butter, soy sauce and lemon.
There is no one way to become velvet. Typically, thinly sliced chicken breast, fish fillets, or lean cuts of beef and pork are combined with cornstarch, egg whites, and a liquid marinade such as soy sauce. Vegetable oil is added when the meat is blanched in boiling water. Some cooks add a small amount of baking soda, which tenderizes meat and keeps muscle fibers from seizing during cooking, and other seasonings.
The marinade for the velveting should be massaged into the meat with gentle and steady pressure.Laura McDermott for DailyExpertNews
The marinade is massaged into the meat, and according to Mr Han, who grew up in Beijing and learned the technique at the age of 17, there should be gentleness in the process. When preparing his kung pao, he spent two minutes working the marinade into the chicken, applying gentle and steady pressure with both hands.
At Shanghai Terrace, Mr. Han marinates the meat for several hours before blanching it in a wok with hot oil for up to 90 seconds. At home, blanching in boiling water has many advantages: it is healthier, less messy and less dangerous. Whichever way it is prepared, the meat is then strained and ready for stir-frying with other ingredients.
In restaurant kitchens, hot oil is used for velveting, but for home cooks, boiling water is a better option.Laura McDermott for DailyExpertNews
In a sense, velvet is a safety measure. In professional Chinese kitchens, gas burners heat woks to such high temperatures that it often resembles cooking with a jet engine. Velveting creates “a shell for the meat you're marinating, a bubble to protect it, so the moisture can't escape as easily,” says ArChan Chan, the chef at Ho Lee Fook in Hong Kong, a contemporary Cantonese restaurant.
After a quick dip in bubbling oil or water, the velvety meat is strained and ready for a final toss with vegetables and sauce.Laura McDermott for DailyExpertNews
Andrew Wong, the chef at London's two-Michelin-starred A.Wong, said that even when velvety meat is cooked in hot oil, the effect is less frying than steaming.
He said velveting is about creating barriers, which are equally effective in stir-fried or steamed dishes. “Because you're creating this thin surface over the egg white, everything is effectively steamed at a low temperature,” he said. “It makes for a much moister end product.”
Mr Wong, a native of Britain, also recommends velvet for non-Chinese applications. He has used it in chicken and mushroom pie and poulet Chasseur.
“Coq au vin, beef stroganoff, you notice a huge difference with velvety softness.”
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