The chicken pieces in chef Elmo Han’s kung pao are so remarkably tender that when teeth meet meat, the poultry barely offers a fight. The dish he serves at Shanghai Terrace, a fine dining restaurant in the Peninsula Chicago Hotel, is a faithful interpretation of the classic, but noteworthy in that it includes chicken breast instead of thighs. White meat, in less capable hands, can quickly dry out and toughen into shoe leather.

Like many Chinese chefs, Han employs a simple method of marinating and flash-cooking that can make lean meat and seafood silky: it’s called velveting.

Think of stir-fried broccoli beef, where the sauce enrobes rather than merely coats the meat. Velveting is the reason. Without it, “the sauce falls off the pieces, and it’ll taste bland,” Han said. “It helps the sauce cling onto 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 succulence.”

The process starts with marinating sliced meat and seafood in a protective coating of cornflour, egg whites and seasonings. After the meat is blanched with a quick dip in hot oil or boiling water, the drained pieces are covered in a gel-like barrier, which yields 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 like chicken breast become supremely juicy when marinated and dunked in bubbling water.

There’s no one way to velvet. Most commonly, thinly sliced chicken breast, fish fillets or leaner cuts of beef and pork are combined with cornflour, egg whites and a liquid marinade such as soy sauce. Vegetable oil is added if the meat will be blanched in boiling water.

Some cooks add a small amount of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), which acts as a meat tenderiser and slows muscle fibres from seizing up during cooking, and other seasonings.

The marinade is massaged into the meat, and according to Han, who grew up in Beijing and learned this technique at age 17, there must be a gentleness to the process. When preparing his kung pao, he spent two straight minutes working the marinade into the chicken, applying a soft and steady pressure with both hands.

At Shanghai Terrace, Han marinates the meat for several hours before he blanches it for no more than 90 seconds in a wok of hot oil. At home, blanching in boiling water has many advantages — namely that it’s healthier, not as messy and less dangerous. Whichever way it’s flash-cooked, the meat is then strained and ready for stir-frying with other ingredients.

“Because you’re creating this thin surface over the protein, everything is effectively being steamed at a low temperature. It creates a much more moist end product.”

Andrew Wong

In a way, velveting is a safeguard measure. In professional Chinese kitchens, gas burners heat woks to such high temperatures that it often resembles cooking over a jet engine. Velveting creates “a shell for whatever meat you’re marinating, a bubble to protect it, so the moisture can’t go out as easily,” said ArChan Chan, the chef of Hong Kong’s Ho Lee Fook, a contemporary Cantonese restaurant.

Andrew Wong, the chef of London’s two Michelin-starred A.Wong, said that even when velveted meats are cooked in hot oil, the effect is less frying than it is steaming.

He said velveting is about creating barriers, equally effective in stir-fried or steamed dishes. “Because you’re creating this thin surface over the protein, everything is effectively being steamed at a low temperature,” he said. “It creates a much more moist end product.”

Wong, who was born in Britain, recommends velveting in non-Chinese applications, too. He has employed it in chicken and mushroom pie and chicken casserole.

“Coq au vin, beef stroganoff, you’ll notice a massive difference with velveting.”

Butter-soy chicken and asparagus stir-fry

Velveting does the heavy lifting in this lightning-quick stir-fry, tenderising the chicken before it’s tossed with vegetables in a savoury sauce of butter, soy sauce and lemon. To speed things along further, you can prep the vegetables while the chicken marinates.

INGREDIENTS

For the chicken

• 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast (280-340g), or 2 smaller chicken breasts (about 170g each), thinly sliced
• 1½ tsp cornflour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp sugar
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• black pepper
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp egg white (from 1 egg; save the rest for an omelette)

For the stir-fry

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 100g asparagus (4-5 medium stalks), cut into 2.5cm pieces
• 6 large button mushrooms, quartered (about 100g)
• ½ red capsicum, sliced
• salt and black pepper
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 lemon wedge
• toasted sesame seeds, for serving (optional)
• cooked rice, for serving

METHOD

1. Marinate the chicken: In a bowl, combine chicken, cornflour, baking soda, sugar, salt, soy sauce and a few cracks of black pepper. Add the oil and 1 tablespoon of egg white. Using a spoon, mix until well combined and the chicken appears glossy and velvety. Cover bowl and refrigerate chicken for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.
2. When chicken is marinated, place a colander in your sink. In a saucepan, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Carefully add marinated chicken to the boiling water. Use tongs or chopsticks to separate the pieces (some egg white may float to the surface). Cook for 90 seconds, then drain the chicken in the colander. Shake the colander to remove excess liquid (the chicken won’t be fully cooked yet).
3. Start the stir-fry: Heat the oil in a large nonstick frypan or wok over medium-high. When the oil is hot (it should flow quickly when you tilt the pan), add the asparagus, mushrooms and capsicum and stir-fry until lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Transfer chicken from the colander to the pan and add a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir-fry constantly for 1 minute.
4. Push the chicken and vegetables to one side of the pan and reduce heat to medium-low. In an empty area of the pan, add the butter, allowing it to melt and sizzle. Then pour the soy sauce onto the butter and stir to combine. Push the chicken and vegetables into the sauce and stir-fry for 30 seconds. (The sauce should cling to the chicken.)
5. Transfer to a platter and squeeze juice from the lemon wedge over top. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, if using. Serve immediately with rice.

Serves 2-4

The New York Times