If you want to do it properly you'll need the following ingredients:
- Soy sauce (obviously, but good quality low-sodium stuff)
- Oyster sauce
- Rice wine vinegar
- Fish sauce
- Sesame oil
- Fresh ginger and garlic
If you're going to use beef, you'll want to get a decent cut and slice it as thinly as you can manage, against the grain. Ideally, marinate it for around 3 hours in ginger, soy, sugar or honey, garlic, corn starch (stir well so there's no clumps) and water. You can then save the mixture and add it into the pan/wok when you're cooking.
When you cut the vegetables, you should go for a thick julienne. Stir fry vegetables should be cut much larger than the Western style, especially the onions. It will also prevent them from burning. There's no set number of vegetables that you should use but anything like the following will work nicely:
- Bok choy (this should actually be essential for any stir fry)
- Carrots
- Peppers
- Bean sprouts
- Broccoli or broccolini or tender stem
- Onions
- Lots of garlic
- Cashew nuts
- Mushrooms, including if you can find them dried mushrooms and exotics
- Spring onions
- Lime
- Sugar snap peas
- Fresh coriander leaf
- Egg noodles or good quality rice (and you should preferably not use basmati. Rather choose a glutinous short grain Chinese rice).
Your pan or wok should reach a very high temperature before you begin to cook. You should see it start to sizzle as soon as you start adding ingredients. Cook according to the timing that the ingredients will individually require, i.e., add your onions first and your herbs last.