Oil in stir fries…..

theprizelamb1

I fancied making a chicken stir fry at the weekend, and as I have been making more effort to follow calories in my food I carefully tracked what I was putting in.
 I had assumed that it would be all relatively low calories, with the boil in the bag rice being the largest single source (215 kcal). But I was shocked to see that it was actually the vegetable oil I used was the largest source, with two tablespoons coming in at 240 kcal.

 The other ingredients – chicken breast, veg and soy sauce all came in at 255kcal.

 Admittedly, I had only intended to use 1 tablespoon of oil, but thought the veg was burning slightly so added another.

 Can I stir fry without using oil, or at least significantly reduce the amount of oil being used?

 Thanks

Zillah

Get a good quality non-stick pan and you can cook without any oil. Personally I cook everything in butter! Two tablespoons sounds like a crazy amount. Could you just turn the heat down? You don't need to be searing the hell of out of them.

dudara

The aerosol cans or pump sprays of cooking oil might be the best job here, each spray delivers XX amount of calories. So it's much easier to track.

cbmonstra

I usually add a splash of water to the pan/wok if I think the veg are starting to catch.

Just a splash or it can soften the veg too much.

Does the trick for me.

rubadub

The spray oils can have added muck, check the ingredients. They are usually extremely overpriced too, per gram, some can be refilled. To mimic them all you really have to do is pour a little bit of oil on the pan and wipe it around with kitchen towel to give it a similar even but thin coat.


Interesting to see uncle ben have 62.5g 216kcal as a portion for boil in the bag. But they sell pouches of rice too, 250g and claim 1/2, must 125g cooked is a portion, 175kcal.

I would guess many people eat the 250g themselves, and some might simply glance at the info and thing its lower than it is. This is since rice is surprisingly high in calories, as is pizza, so I think it is a deliberate confidence trick to put down values for half the pack size, even though they know fine well most eat the lot.

there was a study done on Irish takeaways.

http://www.safefood.eu/SafeFood/media/SafeFoodLibrary/Documents/Publications/Research%20Reports/What-s-in-your-Chinese-Takeaway-FINAL.pdf

Most takeaways serve in those same size foil trays

Of the 40 rice samples analysed, boiled rice had an average portion weight of 323 grams and egg fried rice had an average portion weight of 359 grams.

So the uncle ben lower 125g "portion" cooked is near 1/3rd the weight of what you get in takeaways, and takeaways often have less water in them.

In the survey the heaviest boiled rice was 392g