To flash-fry is to cook food quickly over a very high heat — the technique of the searing-hot pan and the brief encounter. Thin slices of meat, seafood, and vegetables hit smoking oil for seconds to a minute: the surface browns furiously through the Maillard reaction while the interior barely cooks, staying tender and juicy. Stir-frying is flash-frying’s systematic form; the flash-fried calamari or the seared scallop is its à la carte expression. The method demands preparation — everything cut, everything ready — because there is no time to chop once the pan is hot, and it demands a pan that holds heat: crowded or cool, the food steams instead of sears. Flash-frying is cooking at the edge of burning, and its reward is the contrast — charred outside, barely-done within.