Yes and no. Stir frying is often done with fairly tough cuts, if not stewing tough. Cutting meat across the grain shortens muscle fibers, leaving a more tender bit of meat. The thinner you cut, the more tender it will be.
Meanwhile you can make stews with more tender cuts, you just need to don’t cook them as long. And there are approaches to stir frying designed to tenderize tougher cuts. Because tenderizing things through cooking is a factor of both temperature and time, not just time.
The issue with products labeled “stew meat” and “stir fry” is that they are not a consistent product. There isn’t a designated cut for either. It’s typically round, which is kind of terrible for both. But it’s just scraps and undersized or misshapen stuff they can’t sell as a roast or steaks cut into strips and cubes. It could be anything from brisket to ribeye. Stuff they’d otherwise grind as burger.
The major difference between “stew” and “stir fry” is stew is cut into cubes, and stir fry into strips. Both usually too large. It also tends to come in more expensive than just buying a suitable cut and cutting it down yourself.
Victoria is in the midst of a second wave and we’ve been re-locked (?) down this week after a month of a bit more openness. We’d planned having some friends around for a boozy Sunday roast but had to cancel after our second lock-down, and were left with a 2.5kg leg of lamb in a household of four, with two vegetarians. Slow roasted for six hours with loads of garlic, thyme, rosemary and lemon.
If you ever run across Mexican or Central American sour cream, buy it. Beats the pants off the daisy (which IS the best of the gringo sour creams). I can find this one sometimes, even in Podunk Nowhere, Midwest, USA.
If you can find Cabot it’ll make you shit your pants.
A friend of mine is Georgian, was raised mostly in Moscow. Her husband found the Cabot at a bodega during a covid driven sour cream shortage.
She hasn’t shut up about how it’s the only American sour cream that can hold a candle to the stuff back in Europe.
I also don’t know that I’d go with “gringo sour cream” it’s not like American sour cream is a bad imitation of the Latin American style. It’s just from that Central and Eastern European tradition. It’s a completely different product.
Kinda like dinging sour cream for being bad creme fraiche.
