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One of the easiest things ever! I will never understand people who buy it in jars. Get some white sesame seeds and carefully toast them. I use a wok but I bet the Greeks don't. Use what you got. Skillet. Perhaps microwave? Be careful - they turn from nicely toasted to incinerated in seconds. Then let them cool and bung into a food processor and add enough olive oil to lubricate. Go easy - you aren't making sesame soup! Let the machine run. If the sesame gets too lumpy add a little olive oil, but remember you really want the sesame oil. When it looks like tahini stop. You did it! I can't really recommend quantities. It depends how much you want. I prefer to make relatively small quantities. Just enough for the next batch of what I want to use it for - nearly always hummus. It keeps well in the fridge. I keep the unused seeds frozen, though. Here is one of my average productions. The container is about six to seven inches in diameter. Sorry can't measure. I'm not at home. Enough to produce one batch of hummus just enough for me.

Your range looks to be an updated version of mine. I don't have the electronic display, but rather buttons for each of the oven's functions (bake, convection, clean, broil, off) and then a knob to set the temperature. Ours is 36", six-burner natural gas top and electric oven. We found the wok side of the grates to not be worth bothering with. They raise the wok too high off the burner. We either use a flat-bottomed wok inside on the normal (unflipped) stove grates, or take a round-bottomed wok out to the mega-burner that my husband uses when he brews beer. The warming light in the hood, OTOH, is marvelous. The one maintenance issue with the range that we've had recur is a switch or relay or something inside the burner knob assembly that goes bad. When that happens, you turn the burner off but the igniter keeps on popping until you either turn the burner back on or you give up and kill the breaker. When the second one died, we had our appliance repair guy order us five of the replacements parts, so that when the last four went, we wouldn't have to wait for the part to come in. Of course, the last four have been fine now, and the parts have been waiting going on three years now! <knocks on wood>

Some glitches today. The trim kit for the microwave/convection oven is too big. Contractor blames the supply house, but it's been sitting here in the box for at least 3 weeks and contractor never checked. I blame the contractor but verbalizing that won't get it here any sooner, so I held my tongue. Refrigerator is in and working. Stove is slightly in but contractor forgot his foamy test liquid so not fully functional. Contractor did tell me he had lunch with an old friend today so I think that is why things did not get done. Can you tell I'm really ready for this to be over? Promised to be functional tomorrow . The grates are kinda cool, they flip over and are concave to hold a wok

Boilsover. Sounds to me as if your "local appliance dealer" has a lot of gas cook tops that he wants to unload. You do realise that induction has been around for decades in Europe? I have never heard of anybody having one wear out. In Europe appliance manufacturers are legally required to honour a five year automatic warranty on all major appliances (unlike the US where Whirlpool, which owns most of the appliance brands, doesn't even honour its one year warranty). If their products didn't last more than five years Bosch and the rest would be out of business. As for the search for a round bottomed wok that works on gas, or induction, surfaces; there is no such thing. Unless the wok can descend into the flame you will have insufficient surface being heated. I found an electric wok (Breville) for just over $100 that has the element build into the wok itself. It gets up to 500 degrees all over the surface, which I find sufficient for stir frying.

I don't know what possessed me to make these on a 42 degree day, given the amount of time they require you to stand over a giant wok of steaming water, but these are a banh beo/banh bot loc mashup; Vietnamese tapioca starch dumplings, with spicy minced pork and prawns, shallot oil, chilli/garlic/fish sauce and lime to dress, and deep fried crispy shallots. They look like nothing once cooked, since the tapioca starch cooks to completely translucent, but you turn them over on themselves with a spoon, make sure you get all the garnishes on, and it's down the hatch in one happy mouthful.

Another vote for the Lacanche. We have a Saulieu and it was the best kitchen decision we made in our remodel. I especially love the French top. You can do low simmers on it, or you can take the round center part out and pop in the wok ring, and it becomes a super high heat wok burner. The build quality is great but the technology is very simple, so repairs should not be complicated, if you ever need them. Their US office is also in NYC, so less shipping cost and easy access to parts for you. This is a range built to last a lifetime. And they are absolutely gorgeous, and will be the star feature of the kitchen. One place that we saved some money was with the cabinets. We got ours from Green Demolitions. They buy high end cabinets being removed from homes for redos (usually when a new owner with different tastes moves in). They only buy stuff that is in ver good shape. You have to spend some time looking through plans to see what will fit in your kitchen, but we ended up getting a killer deal on solid wood cabinets, and they included a bunch of high end (Miele, Sub Zero, Viking) appliances like warming drawers, dishwasher, wine fridges, under counter fridge drawers, etc. in our package deal. That allowed us to go a bit higher end on the range and on the granite (Madagascar labradorite and Volga blue). I would estimate we saved $20-30k on cabinets (over using locally purchased semi-customs, not full customs) and got a number of appliances (some of which we love but would not have sprung for otherwise) as a bonus. Oh, and as the name implies, recycling perfectly good cabinets is a good environmental decision.

This shape is known by several names: "sauteuse evassee", "Windsor", "Fait Tout". You are correct that this shape is of venerable history in the classical French batterie. The one on the right had no place in that history, although now it's called "saucier" (or less frequently here, a "sauteuse bombee"). The splayed shape was adopted for two main reasons: (1) it allows increased evaporation; and (2) as pan contents are reduced, the surface-to-volume ratio remains relatively constant. That constancy relieves the cook from making as many transfers to progressively smaller straightwall saucepans/casseroles when doing a reduction. The increased access with utensils and specifically whisks was incidental, IMO. The Windsor can be made using both the old joinery and the lathe-turning that was later adopted. The bombee would be very difficult (and wasteful) to do the old way, but easy on a lathe with the right mandrel. Only if the curvature turns back on itself (think bean pot or Ruffoni stocker) does it become harder. But it is still do-able--you just need to use what's called a "split chuck" in the turning. In the modern world of die pressing, you can stamp out either shape, but you can't turn the curve back to narrow. For use, I consider the two shapes mostly interchangeable. The Windsor is more linear in the surface:volume sense. I suppose, if you're one of those cooks who buys the theory of whisks better "fitting" into the bombee (I don't), you might be happier going that route. Note that even these compound-curved pans still have a bottom corner, and many whisks are fine and flexible enough to work in even a vertical wall "corner" (all of which have some radius anyway). The bombee probably would be better as a makeshift wok on the cooktop and as a zambaglione/sabayon pan. The Windsor is so versatile it would be my Desert Island pan.

Not sure what to call this. I had half a small pork tenderloin left over from a few nights ago, which I sliced into quarter inch thick slices, pounded out into 1/8 inch thick medallions. I stir fried some peppers and onions and minced garlic in the wok until almost tender, added some sliced Shang high bok choy and stir fried a bit longer, transferred them to a bowl, quickly mixed the pork medallions up with some Korean BBQ sauce and stir fried that up, added back vegetables, Hoisin sauce, chopped green onions and served the lot over jasmine rice. In retrospect, it was delicious, but could have used a bit more heat. If I had it to do again, I would have finely sliced half a jalapeno and added it when I first introduced the pork medallions to the heat. HC

I have come to the conclusion the cut is less important then what it used to tenderize it. And i don't want to hear bs about using a very hot wok and cooking briefly because i have nuked to hell leftover beef stir fry and that beef was still more tender then any thin sliced beef i have made stir fry out of.

It's still too hot for this kind of dinner, really, but it's what I woke up wanting this morning. Had to wait till evening. Steak and kidney pie with simple fried okra and new potatoes. The steak and kidney mix contains onion, celery , carrot and a large white chilli pepper. This was started off in a wok before being transferred to the pie dish and into the oven with its lid. The wok was deglazed with red wine to make a gravy - added after the pics were taken.

I have had mixed success with sous vide Chinese dishes. I have had great success with char siu, Hoi Nam/Hainanese/white cut chicken -- dishes that I make almost exclusively sous vide now because of the superior results -- and various braised pork belly dishes. I've had much less success with vegetable dishes, and have had some really inedible disasters -- I wasted some beautiful spring bamboo shoots a few weeks ago which would have been much better poached or steamed but wound up horribly bitter (maybe from cyanide which won't flash off or dilute like in a wok or boiling water). For beans and greens there is even less reason, as these things cook so quickly. For beans, I "break the rawness" by throwing them in boiling water for a minute or so -- in a restaurant they might do that in hot oil -- before stir frying them. Since you want your beans crisp, I don't see how sous vide could improve the texture of the final dish in any way. If the idea is to do the whole dish sous vide, with the spices and other ingredients in the bag, I don't think there is any way that could work for several reasons, including that the spices would behave in unpredictable ways that are not likely to be good, and also that you would wind up with a watery, unreduced, and unthickened sauce. I'm a big fan of sous vide, and use it also for western simple vegetables (i.e., carrots, potatoes (packed with butter at 90C is a sure winner)) but for Chinese vegetables nothing is easier or better than a wok.

Do an internet search for "exploding pyrex". I had a pyrex measuring cup explode in my hand while measuring cold water, nothing hot was involved, about a decade ago. I have gotten rid of almost all all the glass bakeware in my kitchen, just some Duralex custard cups remain, and almost all of the ceramics (just holding on to a couple of vintage items with sentimental value). Honestly, I use my copper clad stainless pots and pans, plus my beloved wok and cast iron, for almost everything and for baking I use professional sheet pans and hotel pans.

Am I the only one eating lunch? Today, I made it to the local market and my seafood gal sold me these lively beauties. They were, as usual, live, but more energetic than normal.They even survived being carried back to my place in a plastic bag and an hour in the fridge. They were still twitching and jumping when they hit the wok. They had been well purged and not a drop of vein was detectable, so I did them shell on. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, but in the end, I simply fried them. The looked so fat and juicy that I didn't think they needed much else. A sprinkling of lemon juice and a sea salt, pepper and chilli powder dip sufficed.

After viewing the garden, we went to one of the restaurants that gets all of their produce from the village - they also have a cooking school: It had a very peaceful setting with an open air, thatched roof. There was a family of British people, 2 adults and 2 small kids - maybe 6 and 8 years old? - who were taking a cooking class, which was done at one end of the dining room. It was interesting to see little kids dropping stuff to be deep fried into a small wok precariously balanced on a small propane burner. No one was injured in the making of their lunch that day. I didn't take a photo of it - I thought that might be rude... but it was a cute scene. Lime juice - by the time we got there, we were ridiculously hot and sweaty from sauntering around the vegetable village - even with our sun umbrellas! So refreshing... Banh Xeo, served with rice papers, lettuce, some kind of sprout, and spearmint (no peppermint this time). Not nearly as greasy as the one at BaLeWell - very tasty. It came with a fish sauce with lots of smashed garlic. Here's an action shot just prior to consumption: Cha Gio spring rolls - not greasy at all ... very good. Bo La Lot (baw lah lut) - beef covered with lemongrass and la lot leaves (betel leaves) and grilled on a banana leaf. This was awesome. The beef was tender and flavorful, and the betel leaves definitely impart a unique flavor that is hard for me to describe. And the lemongrass was actually tender - which was mindboggling since when I use lemongrass at home, the desiccated stalks, even when cooked have the texture of sawdust. more Rau muong stir fried with garlic Off the back end of the dining room was the restroom, and next to it, a small plot of farm land and drying racks for what looked like sweet potato crackers.

Your question is confusing. Do you mean valuable as in costly or do you mean useful? If the former then my Thermomix. If the latter it depends. If I want to make waffles it's my waffle iron but if I want to make a stirfry it's my wok.

Ive gotten their magazine from the library before its interesting. I got an email that took me here : Its a kikstarter page , but I can't seem to just paste the URL /projects/936865763/the-illustrated-wok-chinese-food-like-youve-never?ref=7vcjtf if you type https://www.kickstarter.com before the partial URL above ' if you type ' it might get you there.

After many approaches to searing meat, I use one of two methods, neither of which is a Searzall: deep frying for a minimal period, or heating my wok up on a wok burner to red hot temperatures, drying the meat, applying oil and salt and then searing. I'm happy and no smells of gas products.

ARRRGGG! I need to retire from teaching so I can hang out here more! Enjoying everyone's dishes! A few dishes to fill our needs lately: Stuffed Bell Peppers with ground pork, shrimp, and waterchestnut. Had some deep-fried tofu cubes in the fridge, so stuffed them All fried in the wok then drizzled with oyster sauce gravy. Had a very windy day yesterday - worst at 65 km/hr. Needed comfort food, so we had steamed pork with salty fish (traditional Cantonese dish I grew up with). I also love soy bean sprouts stir-fried with ginger and green onions. Lots of rice was needed, and we especially enjoyed the soften "burnt rice" on the bottom of the pot with some of the juice from the steamed pork and fish. Tonight was a quick supper after doing a bunch of clean-up in the yard after the wind storm. A small roast pork, sticky rice (joongzi) steamed in the Instant Pot from frozen state. Steamed frozen mixed veg, and cole slaw.

Hi Kay, Crocodile is soft and delicate when cooked well, as much of the fat is removed before cooking only a small amount is left making the crocodile a healthy protein, however, it's easy to overcook and can become tough -- much like an overcooked squid. So adding a coat to the meat will help keep the moisture in; either coated in starch, fried and briefly wok tossed in a sauce or smoked. As a smoked product the meat can be served chilled with a fruity flavoured emulsion to your liking i.e infused into a mayonaise base. As the use of Australian ingrediants is still new to modern Australian cuisine (can you believe), there is a lot of potential for discoveries concerning their preparations and uses. Since I've only started I'll be keeping my nose and tastebuds open to suggestions. I think Cajun cooking can offer some more insight into 'what works' with crocodile. I've never been but I believe Lousiana is similar to some parts of Australia as places like the national parks of Northern Territory, locals there tend to eat what it can provide and tend to use Asian flavours for their dishes whereas Cajun is French influenced I believe ?

There are certain things that home cooks typically do not own but are common in restaurant and bar kitchens. Things like salamanders, planchas, and deep fryers with cold zones. 240V induction units, blast chillers, wok burners, combi ovens, and real ice cream machines. Where home cooks have their Cuisinarts, the pros have Robocoup-jujitsu that can dice a case of tomatoes in two minutes flat. My question to the professionals in the audience is: Of this class of appliance -- of any type or application --which particular models/brands do you love? Why do you love them? Bonus points if they could conceivably be used in a dream home kitchen. I realize this is an extremely broad question, but I'm hoping to elicit people telling heartwarming stories about how awesome their broiler is, or anecdotes about which model of plancha the Adria brothers use in their kitchens. Maybe you're a bartender and there's a specific ice maker that makes perfect cubes for cocktails... or maybe you worked grinding brunch shifts and made a million tedious-but-perfect waffles using an especially trustworthy waffle maker.... whatever it is, write a love note to your favorite gear. Let us home cooks know what we're missing.

Parted out a leg of lamb roast . We usually can eat a leg of lamb, so i dissect out 2 roasts and grind some left over for burger. This was a roast Sous Vide 4 hrs @135 finished on the " Big Kahuna " ( Outdoor wok ) served with Tators and corn ( Not shown ) Seasoning - Penzy Turkish, fresh parsley, rosemary and garlic

I have looked for years for a black steel wok with a flat bottom it had to be thick steel to stop it from warping on the induction cooktop 3500W Burner. Well I found it made by the French company Mauviel it is 12.5" diameterwith 3mm thick steel the flat bottom is 4 1/2 inches, although it has a flat inside too it cooks wonderfully. The weight is 5lbs heavy but manageable .The cost is $100 considering there is no alternative it's cheap.Here is my review. I know there are people looking for a good wok for induction so I hope some find this post good information.I do have a JWright cast iron wok that I've used for 5 years and it too is great but it's discontinued. This M Steel Wok is much better. Posted some images of the seasoned wok so you can see it . This is after oven season @500 Degrees.Turning black already non stick .Happy ! Mauviel M'Steel Black Steel Wok, 11.8", Steel If you have any ?? please post i'll do my best to answer.

Biased sliced zucchini coins shaken up in a bag of plain flour, dunked in an egg wash, rolled in a mixture of bread crumbs, garlic powder and a hefty amount of tajin, then shallow fried in peanut oil in a wok and drained on a paper towel. These would be great with a cold beer or two! HC

@Deryn, I don't know what kind of wok you have, but I have a one that needs an outside heat source and isn't very heavy. It's stored upstairs in my spacious linen closet along with my heavy V-rack for roasting whole poultry or prime rib, long-handled fish grilling basket, grills for the barbecue, stash of disposable dinner ware for power outages, 18" perforated pizza pan, and a bunch of other stuff that one would never think of storing in a linen closet. I have kitchen stuff stored in every room of the house including the bedrooms. That doesn't help much with your heavy appliances, except maybe the wok. They take up a lot of space. There is a free-standing pantry cabinet that doesn't look out of place in the foyer which leads into the living room. I keep kitchen linens, spices, novelty serving dishes and stuff in there. I put shelves from the floor almost to the ceiling in the laundry room for canned goods, pasta, and other pantry items. I am like Lisa Shock. I can't stand cleaning that greasy, dusty film off appliances so my blender, toaster, electric can opener, coffee maker and everything else are stored either in cabinets or another room. I don't have any really heavy stuff like you do, though. Something that might add flexibility is a rolling kitchen island. You could move it where you needed it. Some are quite attractive.

Those are great ideas, Lisa. Thanks. My real problem though goes beyond aesthetics .. it is (lack of) open counter space. I already do have a fitted cover for each of my KA mixers .. but they sit on the floor most of the time. Since they are heavy it is such a nuisance to hoist them up to counter height to use them. Same issue with my ice cream maker (which I lifted up yesterday in preparation to make some Orange Pineapple machine). Whoa is that thing heavy and awkward to get out of its almost floor level cubbyhole - and you have to keep it level because it has a compressor in it. My Thermomix is on the counter but due to its height, I can't keep even the lid on it (so I have to store that and the Varoma piece elsewhere) if it is pushed back to the wall .. and my Vitamix doesn't fit under the top cabinets at all. The wok is on the counter but it takes up almost all of the only really good space I have for cutting things up (so no room left to prep for what needs to go into it). I had to haul in another table to put the IP on .. and now that is also where the toaster and waffle iron sit since I use all of those most often. And there are more .. many more unfortunately that I need to house but also want to use - and will use more frequently if they are already out. I suspect I need a complete kitchen overhaul .. pull down the top cabinets and just extend the countertop run at least 20 feet unobstructed. I was joking when I said I should 'hang' my appliances from the wall though if there were strong enough magnets I might try! ... but perhaps (alternatively to a full kitchen renovation) I need to devise some kind of 'hanging shelf' system with a remote control that would raise and lower individual appliances down to counter height but store them neatly in a line or several lines near the ceiling. Kind of like a parking garage in some cities where they stack the cars and use elevators to bring them up and down.