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The invention of Chinese stir-fried dishes greatly influenced Chinese cooking. Stir-fried dishes use a wide range of ingredients and are cooked quickly so they retain the nutrients of the meats and vegetables. Stir-fried dishes can be meat dishes, vegetable dishes, or meat and vegetable mixtures. Popular dishes found in the north include fried bean curd with minced meats, fried pork with shredded ginger, and quick ¨C fried mutton with onion. These popular dishes are known throughout China.

¡¡¡¡Those Chinese families who eat cereals as their staple food often serve stir-fried mixtures of meat and vegetables. Stir-fried dishes first appeared after the Han Dynasty and were common even in the palace and in officials residences. In the Han and pre-Han dynasties, most dishes were thick soups and uninspired boiled, deep-fried, or roasted dishes without seasonings.

¡¡¡¡The character chao for the word stir-fry does not appear in the book Explanatory Notes for the Ancient Classics, which was completed in the 12th year of Yongyuan's reign in the Eastern Han Dynasty (100 A.D.). In a rhyming dictionary compiled in the 6th century, the ancient form of chao was first seen, but it meant to stir cereal in a pot without oil to dry it. In cooking dishes, chao means to stir-fry meat or vegetables with seasonings in a small amount of oil or fat at the proper temperature until they are done.

¡¡¡¡When stir-frying Chinese dishes, the Chinese wok must be used. If a flat-bottom pan was used, the taste would be different. The temperature of the oil in the pan is very important. For example, when stir-frying hot pepper powder, a skilled chef can make it as red as blood. In Sichuan, stir-fried bean curd with minced meat is a dish of white bean curd in red oil, which is very appealing to the eye. If the temperature of the oil is not well controlled, the fried hot pepper power turns burnt ochre and loses its appeal.