How to Make Great Tasting Stir Fry Sauce

• Use peanut or mustard oil (they have higher smoke points - useful for the high heats used in stir frying, and also impart a nice flavor)
• Always be Asian trinity-ing (garlic, ginger, green/red onions - if you use green onions, finely chop the white part and use that with the other two, and add the green leafy part as a garnish, or right at the very end to add flavor)
• Shaoxing rice wine can be added next
• A bit of chicken stock (or whatever meat your using in the stir fry, or vegetable stock if that's your bliss)
• Add 1 tbsp cornstarch + 1.5 cups hot water (or whatever amt u deem appropriate for your dish) and add the resulting mixture into the stir fry for a nice thick sauce (this works really well if u mix in the stock here)
• Stick some dried/re-hydrated mushrooms in that sucker (chopped into strips or diced)
• use the black bean sauce (as a guy whose grown up a Honky (aka a HKer), Lee Kum Kee is my go too brand here)
• I'm also from a boarder province of Tibet where we like to add a touch of black rice vinegar (aka Jinjiang Tsu), this stuff can add dimensions of flavor previously unthought of to a stir fry. I do a simple cabbage+pork stir fry, and this stuff is my secret ingredient
• Use five spice, or the harder to find 10 spice or 13 spice
• Add a touch of dark soy sauce (its v thick, and slightly bitter) to give the stir fry a nice brown glaze/gleam
• Add sesame oil right at the end (never at the beginning, the flavor can actually die on you if you cook for too long in high heat)

Now, lets talk about Oyster sauce: I'm not one of those guys who hates the stuff, and I like to put it over some par-boiled-then-stir-fried kailan w/ a touch of garlic, but if you use some of the stuff above, you can get some really incredible flavors that, dare I say it, are better than what any oyster sauce can do for your dish. But if you're someone who (like me) does enjoy the taste itself on occasion, stick some in, but try doing it in balance with the other stuff above.

• Last thing: Meat - it seems you don't use any, and if that's because you're a vegetarian, than disregard the next three points:
• Use flank steak if ur going for a cut of beef
• I always use strips of boneless chicken thigh if i'm going for chicken
• Pork tenderloin if you wanna add oink

I hope none of this came off as too Asian-purist... that being said, you'll have to go to an Asian market to get a few of the things on this list. Also, I might add that I don't do all these things in one go in any one dish, because I think it might catalyze the formation of a wormhole in my wok, but you can feel free to try. :)

If the black rice vinegar sounds good, try keep an eye out for the stuff from Zhe Jiang, that stuffs the bomb

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