Your Stir Fry is Missing Baking Soda (Tenderizing & “Velveting” Beef – 2 ways!) | The Woks of Life
In this video, we’re talking all about how to prepare your beef for stir fry—picking out the right cut and using the right velveting technique to achieve the most tender beef. Specifically, we put two methods for velveting beef to the test—one is a “shortcut” method and the other is a “water rinsing” method that restaurants use. Which one do we prefer? More importantly, you be the judge and which one will you use after watching this!
Full post on how to prepare beef for stir fry—with detailed velveting + marinade recipe here!
Get our Beef & Broccoli Recipe here (it’s also in our NYT Bestselling cookbook!):
0:00 Intro
0:42 What cut of beef is best for stir fry? ‘
1:42 Two methods for velveting beef
3:00 What is “oil velveting”? / What is “water velveting”?
4:35 How to cut beef for stir fry
5:52 Velveting the beef
8:34 Do you use egg whites to velvet beef?
10:59 Show me the velveted & marinaded beef!
11:38 Searing the beef
13:22 Time for Beef with Broccoli!
15:13 Taste test
18:30 What’s the verdict
19:31 Blooper 🙂
Thanks for watching!
– Bill, Judy, Sarah, and Kaitlin ❤️👨👩👧👧
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very thorough and concise. well done communication educational video
Bill, I Love this video … I normally use the short cut method for the flavor retention but I use Bi-carb of soda, should i be using baking soda instead ?
Thank you for posting 🙂
Which method of the two is your personal favorite?
Thank you so very much for your explanation and demonstration. It was thorough and concise. Obviously, both methods have their place, depending on your cut of meat
How may I ask you made the sauce? Thanks
❤
Nice video. I use the shortcut method. I will definitely give the water method a try. Thank you for sharing! 🥢
Sirloin is also a lower cost cut which is good for stir fry.
Great video! I can't wait to try this out!!
Thank you for the side by side comparison test.
My absolute favorite dish. I'll have to try these out.
Interesting that the one that risks having baking soda flavor is also beefier. As always I'm my life, something I'm the middle of these two might be the right answer.
I always add some vinegar to the meat and massage it in before the final rinse because vinegar neutralizes any residual baking soda and completely removes any baking soda flavor.
Imagine you could use some beef broth instead of water or beef bullion and that would replace some of the lost beef flavor?
You guys make great and useful video's… Thank you and cheers from Canada…!
Good video. I normally do the water method. I don't want to take a chance of the baking soda taste getting into the dish. I also use a touch of dark soy to put a little color back into the meat and I give the cooked broccoli A little ice bath so it keeps it's bright color. Then I just give it a little finish stir fry with the beef…Thanks for posting this video.
Thanks to the Boss and Queen Judy, Learn a lot today. By the way Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to the Leung family. Cheers.
Also, your WOK burner is not a normal buy it at Home Depot version. Can you go over what you have installed please since that one is a much higher BTU burner.
Lighting and video quality is amazing!
Well done. I learned Hakka way from mother & aunts. Oyster sauce +++
I have my flank steak in the freezer in a marinade. I usually grill it. If I want to stir fry, do I slice it and velvet it or just use it as is? Marinade is soy, oyster sauce, brown sugar etc.
Great mini class, and I’m thinking the water rinsing is more tender due to more water absorption. These methods really make all the difference, and watching to see exactly how it’s done in real time was really appreciated. Thank you!👍💕
This has helped clear up so many questions that I had about velveting, amazing and thank you
I never knew that one was called the water rinse method. That's the one I use, and it makes absolutely amazing beef.
Shortcut all the way! Meat from water rinse doesn’t look good, lost its color and some taste like both of you agreed. Also shortcut look much better when fried on wok, I doesn’t like when meat is coated in slime from marinade. Thank you for video
Exceptional video guys! I always wondered whether I needed the egg whites and this video helped answer that question. I agree about the eggy taste and it is kind of a deal breaker for me so I’ll use baking soda only from now on. Thanks for the run down!