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Anyone have any advice on how to toast a large quantity of whole spices prior to grinding? Small quantities I've done well in a dry pan/wok... but I'm talking maybe a pound or two of spices at one time. In my Nyonya Specialties cookbook, the author instructs to "put on a tray... heat oven slightly and toast the tray for 30-45 minutes until heated through and fragrant". Any idea what "heat oven slightly" could mean, specifically? My oven doesn't have a "slightly" setting, other than keep warm, but even then, it has various keep warm temperatures starting at 150degF.

With much effort I carefully seasoned my collection of Darto pans. With much less effort I warped the largest making a paella. They are all now rusty. Sadly stainless steel is more my speed. My cast iron, Japan crafted "Chinese cooking vessel" (eg. wok) is still beautifully seasoned. That is because I do not use it much. However it brings exceeding pleasure to look at and to touch.

Thanks guys. I did give it some high heat after the first stir fry. I soaked the wok and then scraped off all the stuck noodles. That's when I tried again and I went well beyond the smoke point. The result was some little glittery flakes (charcoal) that I wiped out with a paper towel. So I knew I had gotten the thing really hot. I'm going to sand it down with some very fine grit sandpaper and do several very light coats of oil. Maybe it's a story about building the coats up over time and not being so impatient. But when you watch the tutorials, it sounds so easy.

If you're using truly hot wok burner, then I don't think there's any point to seasoning it ... those things will incinerate any seasoning just like a self-cleaning oven. If you're using the thing at more normal sauté temperatures then you can treat it just like a cast iron skillet. The sunflower oil you're using is fine; it's got a lot of unsaturated oil that will polymerize nicely. But it will take quite a few coats (preferably very thin ones like Scott says) before it really helps. And you have to cook them on at a temperature that's past the smoke point by a little bit. A good coating is not just polymerized oil, but also partly carbonized. That means you need to make some charcoal.

You didn't give it enough heat. And your layers of oil might have been too thick. Thinner layers of oil don't just produce an even coating, but they harden faster than a thicker layer of oil. The general rule of thumb is always to wipe the oil on, then carefully wipe it off, then hit it with heat. Light and heat, as has been said many times, are the enemy of oil, but... heat is the friend of seasoning. If the seasoning is sticky, keep giving it more heat- and, if you have it, more time exposed to heat. A slightly lower heat for a longer time tends to polymerize oil a bit better than a quick blast of intense heat. This is why I always season in an oven. If your handles come off, like the OPs do, and your wok fits in the oven, that's how I'd do it. You can't go too thin with the oil layers. It's way better to have 10 microscopically thin layers than 3 goopy bumpy ones. And, as mentioned in the original post, I'd hit it with some very fine grit sandpaper (anywhere between 320-600). This isn't something that's normally done with cast iron, but, cast iron has a much rougher/much more grippier surface than steel.

Thanks Weinoo. That was my assessment. The pros use a lot more oil. But I don't really like oily noodles. I'm thinking about cooking the noodles separately in another pot but that sort of defeats the purpose of having a wok. I'm sure I need more attempts. So I'll keep on trucking. Thanks.

Of course...you could not cook noodles until the wok really develops a good seasoning. And you could use a lot more oil (both of which are probably taking place when you watch the pros). Though often too much oil is used in the original attempt at seasoning.

Hello to All. I'm new to this forum so I'm just getting my bearings. Anyway, I just bought a new 14" flat bottom carbon steel wok. Followed several different YouTube tutorials and I guess I selected all the wrong tips. I washed and scrubbed the wok before I did anything with a metal scouring brush. Dried it then burned all the manufacturers coating off and blued the whole thing inside and out. I have a 9 kW gas burner so there was plenty of heat. Washed, scoured, and dried it again. Then I heated it up and began to spread Sunflower oil lightly over the surface until it began to smoke and blacken. Repeated this several times building up layers. I don't think I hit it hard enough with the heat but it was smoking like in the tutorials. Maybe did too many layers as well. After I was done the touch was not nice and slick. It was rough and a little sticky. I cooked my first stir fry with thin sliced pork first, followed by the veggies and then the noodles. Everything went well until the noodles. I soaked about 400 grams of quick cooking Chinese noodles in hot water, drained them, and into the wok they went. Did OK at first but then they began to stick. Nothing to ruin the meal but I had seen the pros flipping and scraping with a ladle and nothing got stuck. So I soaked the wok for a day and all the burned noodles came off easily. Second time I do the same ingredients but lowered the heat when I put in the noodles and added some water with the oil. Same result but less. I'm fairly confident this is operator error and not the wok or ingredients. My question is, has this happened to anyone else? If so, what was the solution? Throw the damn thing in the garbage or persevere until you got it right? I'm not throwing mine out yet so some tips would be welcomed. Thanks, Big Bird.

I've easily been to over 300 Indian restaurants, but, as much as I love Chinese American restaurants, I don't think I've covered enough ground to give my local place any real kind of endorsement. It's just sort of my local place by default. Anyway, it's Hunan Wok in Florham Park. I like the egg roll, and I like the dumplings- but the dumplings are somewhat thick skinned. My relationship with dumplings is complicated. The dumpling making scene in Crazy Rich Asians brought a tear to my eye. I should be able to tell you where the best dumpling is in this area. With almost every other dish, I have very stark metrics. For instance, I know exactly what I want in a pizza, down to an extremely granular level. With dumplings, though, as many as I've consumed... I know that I like a fairly thick skin, but, other than that, I know that I've had better ones in the past- when I lived in Manhattan, a local place had chicken dumplings to die for, but, I can't really put my finger on what traits I'm looking for. And spending the 7 or so bucks to try them at different places.... eh. I think I tried the egg rolls at about fifteen local joints. For a great egg roll, I can risk about $1.35 fifteen times. But, coming up short on $7 dumplings... that would hurt When I'm trying to better my lot in life, dumplings are what I think about. Not a house on the beach, not a trophy wife. Dumplings.

I am glad you like the book. Without waiting for a response though, I purchased the Kindle edition of the Chang book. I have been thinking about posting a review on here but I couldn’t quite find the words. Let us just say there were no sane adults in the room when this made it through the publishing process. This is not about misplaced commas or split infinitives. it’s about clear thinking. It’s about logical organization. It’s about fonts in so many sizes and so many colours that you feel as if you are reading in a kindergarten classroom. It’s about photographs that make me look good as a photographer. According to Chang, a nonstick wok is a necessary piece of kitchen equipment; three eggs and half a cup of liquid will make a silky custard (for chawanmushi) when cooked in the microwave. Even the photograph of this shows something approaching an over-cooked omelet! There is so much more that is wrong with this book in my opinion. YMMV.

I made two of the sockeye salmon fillets from Wild Alaska last night. It was the first time that I didn't overcook the crap out of them! They were dusted with rice flour and shallow fried in the wok - it took about 45 seconds per side if that. Then covered with a belacan sambal topping I made earlier in the day. Devoured before photos were taken....

Black pepper is rarely used in Chinese cuiusine, so yes, I'd bet on it being white pepper. Depending on the region Sichuan peppercorns are also a possibility, but as I noted they aren't normally a feature of Cantonese cuisine. There are a number of braised dishes in the Chinese kitchen, although it is not as common as in western cooking. I guess the reason for that goes back to the fuel-saving idea that led to the stir-fry wok culture. Braising would have been seen as too fuel-guzzling.

Good input on Ho Fun. This was the first time I've had REALLY good results with the fresh noodles. I got these in the city. Like all the packages, the noodles are always packed so tightly, in layers. This time, I was patient, opened the packages early in the day and let them warm up to room temp. Then I took the time to take the layers apart, then separated each noodle if sticking to each other. The trick IS to separate ALL the noodles. I use my well seasoned 16" carbon steel wok, heated up on Ultra-High on the cook top, coated the bottom and sides with cooking oil, heated the oil until barely smoking, then tossed in ALL the noodles. Tongs are good for turning the noodles with a metal spatula. The noodles didn't stick and I got Wok Hei. Tossed in the other ingredients, then little sloshes of sweet soy sauce at the end. That's all the liquid I used. I was very happy with the results this time. I was giving up on using fresh noodles, and had been using the re-hydrated dry noodles. NO COMPARISON! Now that I've had some success, I can stay with the fresh noodles.

fresh rice noodles are notoriously sticky. For me, I think the key is to only stir fry 1 portion at a time and have your wok be really well seasoned. My wok's seasoning comes and goes a bit (a few weeks ago, I made a curry in it that had a lot of tamarind, and it stripped 80% of the seasoning by the time it finished cooking!) so I personally wouldn't attempt cooking fresh rice noodles right now - or maybe I'd coat them with a little bit of oil before the wok, and a bit more oil than normal in the wok heated to smoking so they don't stick together so bad until you can get them moving. And have your stir fry sauce at the ready to pour on top once you get a bit of char on the bottom.

For employment reasons I am not currently in kitchen toy buying mode at the moment, but I have discovered a weakness in my battery of cookware: Tonight is the third time I've made Mark Bittman's NY Times Crisp-Braised Duck Legs With Aromatic Vegetables. Obviously I like it. Amanda Hesser critiques Bittman's recipe, saying that when she prepared the dish in her Le Creuset, the duck stuck to the pan. She says to use a non-stick pan if you have one. When I cooked the Crisp-Braised Duck Legs the two times before I used my Berdes non-stick wok. This was great except the Berdes exactly does not quite fit in my Anova Prescision Oven. Tonight I decided to try La Creuset. I can't say I was not forewarned. The duck stuck to the pot. It's always great when I achieve the same results as the New York Times. So what I need is an induction compatible (I can't live without my Paragon) non-stick braising vessel that fits in the APO. For the application in question a lid is not required. Thoughts?

I have no first-hand experience, but on an old episode of Cooking Issues they mentioned that commercial induction wok burners can be pretty righteous. The Museum of Food and Drink was doing an exhibit called "Chow: Making The Chinese American Restaurant" and they couldn't use gas in the space so were forced to use induction. Some of the Chinese chefs saw what they'd be cooking on, and being used to high powered gas burners, they raised their eyebrows in suspicion. The chefs changed their tune as soon as they started using the burners. They could apparently take the wok from cold to cherry red hot in no time. This is just an anecdote as reported on a radio show, but that story stuck with me as I was doing research on wok burners at the time. From photos of the MOFAD event, it looks like they were using Garland units.

Interesting. Makes me wonder about old-school commercial wok burners. How many of those 100K+ BTUs are actually making it into the pan? Edited to add: 100,000 btu/hr (typical for a Chinese restaurant) is equal to about 30,000 watts. I'm guessing an induction burner this powerful would turn a wok into a glowing puddle of steel juice in just a couple of seconds.

Yeah I have a wok burner on my cooktop (not the highest end one they make) and the filters on the exhaust fan get disgusting.

In their continuing pursuit, yet another Times' writer writes about wok hei, and also some of her guilt for not being more Chinese? And maybe for not even using a wok... The Smoky Taste of Wok Hei, Without a Wok We have carbonara as often as we do dumplings, cereal for breakfast and P.B. and J. for lunch. In only a generation and a half, it feels as though our ties to our heritage are slipping. I was born in California to parents who had immigrated from Hong Kong and who fed us Cantonese food most nights. When I began cooking for myself, I started with the dishes I grew up eating. But then I had three kids in three years while juggling multiple jobs and struggling to build a career. The demands of real life dictated mealtime, and roasting ingredients on a sheet pan felt easier than stir-frying and steaming. Part of what kept me from reflexively cooking Chinese each night was the belief that I had to stick to the way it had been done, to be “authentic.” In short, to use a wok. And a recipe for that most classic of Chinese vegetables, Stir-Fried Brussels Sprouts: Brussels sprouts caramelize to a deep, delicious brown while retaining a fresh bite in minutes when cooked on the stovetop. In this adaptation of wok stir-frying, the sprouts quickly sear in a single layer in a skillet, then steam through with a splash of water to tenderize their tough cores. Crushed garlic cloves release their aroma into the hot oil, but are in chunks big enough to not burn and get bitter. A final sprinkle of sugar, soy sauce and red-pepper flakes give the sprouts a nice balance of sweet, salty and spicy. You can eat this with other stir-fries and steamed rice or alongside any main dish. Leftovers, reheated or cold, can be tossed into grain bowls and salads.

It's true. I've made a few things from Woks of Life and have been pretty happy with it - but I internally cringe when I see them doing that. I understand adding some oil when marinating things - especially ground meats - I find it makes it easier to break up the clumps when they hit the wok - but using sesame oil is just a waste of money.

Yet even websites that should know better repeat the myth. It isn't just YouTube. The Woks of Life, The Spruce Eats etc.

I bought and used my wok in my pre-eG days. Haven't used it much lately though I was gung ho in using it quite a bit originally. I was told the wok hei would develop over time through use, and it did.

In case you don't know about The Onion's cooking videos (or even if you do), here are a couple to get you started. Links to the rest of them are on the right side of each video. https://www.theonion.com/how-to-make-slow-cooked-russet-potatoes-that-fall-right-1821015185 https://www.theonion.com/perfect-one-pot-six-pan-10-wok-25-baking-sheet-dinne-1820847016

I only scrub the wok clean using a scrubbing brush and lots of dishwashing liquid, then I blue the wok, scrub with water then oil and cook over high heat. Takes about 45 minutes max after that it will naturally begin to develop a good coating but nothing sticks anyway. while I’m sure lots of ways work the simplest is to use the wok and let it happen naturally.

I'm sure that in China woks are cheap. Just keep pitching the used ones out the window.