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I have a friend who would like to learn about wok cooking and has asked me to recommend a good book for the beginner. The books I learned from are old and out of print. What current books should I suggest? What about Breath of the Wok ( is that the right name?)? Thanks for your help Dianne Ross

I see that All-Clad makes one. Is there a disadvantage to stainless steel over the traditional cast-iron? The multi-ply construction is substantially heavier but it seems like it will distribute the heat better. Perhaps the biggest difference is that it will not have the non-stick properties of a seasoned wok, but can't this be simply compensated for by using more oil when stir-frying? Stainless steel is also lower maintenance and easier to clean. Most professional Western kitchens have adopted stainless steel over cast-iron, is there a reason why Chinese kitchens should not as well?

After visiting Jerry's in East Rutherford last night, I went past Taos. Has anyone ever been there? After looking at their web site, it appears that they are affiliated with the Village Gourmet and Mignon Steak House. Not bad company.. The menu is unusual and all bottles of wine are $20.00. Has anyone been there?

I wasn't sure if this topic belonged in this subforum or the kitchen tools but are there any particular brands you'd recommend for Chinese equipment such as woks and cleavesr for Chinese cooking? Is there a Chinese All-Clad version, or a Chinese brand that's considered the best value? The only brand I've heard of is Joyce Chen's, but I live in SoCal so I have access to ethnic stores and shops. And, has anybody seen America's Test Kitchen recommendations, and do you agree with them? I was thinking of buying their Chinese book just for their recommendations, but I think they were probably limited to what was available to them.

So, I bought this new wok from the local asian market restaurant supply store the other day and decided tonight would be a great night to break it in. So, I fired up the old turkey fryer burner and got to cookin' Here's the recipe if anyone wants to try this.. http://recipes.egullet.org/recipes/r1900.html Chili Garlic Pork Lomein A little action shot! Yummmm

Many who know me on EGullet know that I don't use a wok to cook Chinese food. I have been using flat frying pans to cook all my meals since I came to the USA for college back in the late 70's. I didn't bother with getting a wok primarily because I feel that using a wok without an adequate heat source is not effective. One thing that I always amused myself with is reading online bulletin board comments, that when someone is getting excited about learning how to cook Chinese food... before he/she even buys any Chinese cookbook, the first thing he/she would do is to buy a wok! And... typically... a "non-stick" wok with flat bottom so one can use it over an electric stove, and a plastic spatula. Anyway, things are about to change... All because I happened to see this gas burner for sale in the local grocery market at only US$32.00: It has 4 rings. The diameter is about 8 inches. Just use a portable natural gas tank. Nice. I was hoping to find some burner that uses compressed air to boost the heat but so far I haven't seen one available in the USA. That just got me interested to start a project on my stove and wok shopping. I am posting my photo journal to share with all of you on my thought process in evaluating different burners/woks and related equipment. The burner that I saw, of course, is far less powerful than the one posted by infernooo: My new wok burner, 120000 BTU/hr! but it is still pretty nice to have. Assuming that I am going to get that burner, my next task is to shop for a good wok, then go through the proper way to season it, etc.. In the same shop, I have found only 2 different models. The first one: is a cast-iron wok, about 28 inches in diameter. I rejected this wok right away because: 1) It is very heavy. There is no way to pick up the wok and toss the food around. 2) It has 2 small "ears" but no handle. I like to use the handle to toss the food around when cooking, the same way I do with the frying pans. The second model: is a stainless-steel (I think - but it's all black in color) wok, about 18 inches in diameter. This looks promising. It is not too big, and not too small. It looks just about right. It has a round bottom, not flat. I picked it up with my left hand and practice the tossing motion and it felt about right. I took the second wok to placed it on top of the burner. It wasn't a perfect fit. The wok was too small to rest on the outer tripod. It was resting on the smaller, inner tripod. The wok could wobble a little bit. I am not sure if this would cause problems. I haven't come to any conclusion yet. I need to shop around some more for different wok models and, possibly, burner models. I will make a trip to San Francisco to see better selections if I have too... Any comments and idea sharings are appreciated!

Just had dinner with the family at Funky Broome. We had a good meal but the portions always seem to be a bit undersized there. We had : salt & pepper fried squid, jellyfish, braised tofu, crispy chicken that wasn't so crispy, sizzling plate of beef fillet w. pepper, sweet & sour sea bass, stir fried conch & squid, scallops & winter melon in XO sauce , & stir fried spinach with shrimp paste, & some stir fried sticky rice (law my faan) for my little nephews. All in all, a pretty tasty meal. I haven't been there in a while so it was nice revisiting it again. The wait staff were real accomodating considering we had a group of 10. Seating always seemed a bit cramped in there when the house is full. Then again it's C town at its best. Incidently, I wasn't aware that Congee Village had a second branch on the bowery named "Congee Bowery" .

I have a thin flat bottom carbon steel wok which I had been using on an electric flat top stove. I just bought a Duxtop induction 1800 watt portable burner. This thing heats so fast, the wok is smoking in seconds.... Since you can't lift the wok off the stove or it automatically shuts off I'm having lots of trial and error. If anyone has any experience using these burners I'd appreciate knowing what wattage you find yourself using and any tips you may have.......

Hello all, My name in Rustem, I live in Switzerland. I was reading this forum for few of years (well, mostly watching photos in “chinese eats at home” topic and getting salivation:). I like Chinese food, especially stir-fry and I want to cook it at home. I have electrical stove with ceramic surface and after reading internet and reviews I went to a shop and bought an expensive BODUM CAST IRON WOK K0810. I followed every word of user manual. Though, every time I cook something it sticks to the surface at the bottom (chicken, meet, noodles – everything, except vegetables), burns and forms a layer of burned staff which is hard to remove. I am very disappointed because this wok has the “special one-layer coating which is a mixture of glass and porcelain” and supposed to be non-stick (ot it is just a marketing bullshit ?). I noticed that inside surface of my wok is not smooth, but with little bumps (I believe it is called “coarse surface”) - could it be a reason why food sticks to it ? Another problem that no matter for how long I pre-heat wok, it starts with very good temperature (oil is smoking), but loses it quickly so food is not fried but steamed and I believe it is mostly because of layer of burned staff at the bottom which blocks the heat. Can somebody help me to understand what I am doing wrong? Jest to let you know: - I use maximum heat setting on my stove. Though, stove is too “smart” and turns off heating element periodically, I cannot control it. But I don't think temperature is the problem as wok is hot enough to smoke the oil. - I pre-heat for 10 min dry wok until it is hot (it is a heavy wok and it takes time to heat it !), then add oil and wait few seconds until it starts smoking. - then add ingredients such garlic and ginger (almost every recipe starts with them) and they immediately stick to the bottom and burn !! If I add meat before , it sticks too. Please help me. I really want to archive the results of this video: As you can see nothing stick to his wok, not even noodles ! Do you think it is doable with my current wok and stove ? Should I buy new wok ? Which one ? Thank you Rustem.

I just bought a wok in a Chinese restaurant supply store in Philly's Chinatown. It was $15 for a 14" wok and seems to be basic, all-metal, the type of thing that everyone on here recommends. It has a single metal handle in the same metal as the bowl, welded to the bowl. Here is an image of pretty similar model: http://www.wokshop.com/HTML/products/woks/wok-iron-pow.html So far, I have only used once - on Saturday, I used it along with a bamboo steamer to hold the wrappers for a Peking Duck appetizer station. We put the wok on a riser, put sterno underneath, hot water in the wok and set the steamer on top - just as you would to steam product at home, only using sterno as the heat source. It worked great, but when the dishwashers ran the wok through the dishwasher at work, It came away with a sticky film all over it, inside and out. There is one spot on the interior of the wok that looks like it was scrubbed - probably with a plastic scouring pad - and that area is not sticky. It isn't the dishwasher, per se, there is no film on anything else. It seems to be some sort of reaction to a coating on the metal of the wok. So, the last wok I bought was from IKEA (don't judge ) Do woks like this need to be treated in some way?

Hello everyone. Newbie here with another exciting thread (sigh). With a low budget of less than $300, I had a hard time hunting for a decent wok burner/table for outdoor, backyard use. The ones I really liked costs at least $800. So with some hard labor, and few hours of playing with mortar mixes, I built a stand for my burner. If you've done something similar in the past, I would like to hear it. The wok ring is built for an APW hot plate, but it fits nicely on my setup. This burner is from an old wok burner I bought from outdoorstirfy. Only 50,000 BTU but it will work for now. If I need more BTU's, it can easily be swapped with another burner from my Bayou SP10. All I need to do is to drill a hole for the LP gas line and few holes for ventilation and I'm good to go.

Hello all, I appologize if this is not an appropriate place to ask questions but I have probably searched whole of internet without any luck. This is my last resort (maybe it should have been the first) I have an Iwachu traditional, round bottom cast iron wok, which I use on my home stove. The double gas burner with the wok ring has about 3 or 4 kW in power; arround 10.000 BTUs I think. My normal proceedure includes pre-heating the wok for about 5-10 minutes before I start cooking. The first problem is the oil. I use sunflower oil which starts smoking immediately as I put it in. The second problem are the aromatics - garlic and ginger. I throw them in, shove them around a little bit, after 5-10 seconds I put the meat in. Aromatics always burn . The third problem is the meat. Just today I cut some beef into thin strips, say 5mm thick and about an inch long, and stir fried them with the aromatics. They let out a lot of water which did evaporate but it left the meat pretty tough. Im losing sanity here , any help appreciated! Cheers and many greets from Croatia! Alex

When I got my new wok burner for Christmas, the first book I ran out to buy was Grace Young's Breath of a Wok, at the recommendation of basically everyone on eGullet whom I asked. I've made a few recipes out of it, but what are your favorites? Are there any I should avoid? In particular I really enjoyed Ming Tsai's fried rice recipe in there, as well as the Spicy Garlic Eggplant.

Cook's Illustrated recently determined that a skillet works better for stir-frying on a western-style stove because more metal comes into contact with the fire as opposed to a Chinese style where the wok sits down in a hole. I thought one of the benfits of a wok was you used less oil than in a skillet. Any thoughts?

I book I'm reading recommends it. Seems like it might hold heat better. Any thoughts?

I just got this 16" wok from Wokshop http://www.amazon.com/inch-Traditional-Cas...6436922&sr=1-13 and I found the wok is much different from what I expected... The wok is much thinner than I thought. As a Chinese I know how much a cast iron wok weights, and this wok is just not as heavy as the ones I used to work with back in China. The wok is also suprisingly flexible. It almost feels like a carbon steel wok that I can bend the wok when I push two handles on the sides towards the middle (try bend your Lodge skillet instead). Now that's a new development. I have never seen or heard any cast iron wok flexible like that before. But I have been away from China for 5 years, who knows what can happen during that time. Cast iron wok is supposed to have better heat retention than carbon steel. With this thin cast iron wok, I don't know how true this 'heat retention' advantage will really be for this wok. The handle is this wok is also really small, you can't grab it safely. So, my question is : Anyone has experience with this wok? Is this 'flexible' cast iron a good material to work with? I am thinking about returning it and found out the wokshop will charge a 15% restocking fee for return item. Read the fine prints!

Couple coworkers went to a "Wok cooking class " and liked it. I was looking at their class note and felt it missed couple important points. Therefore, I sent them some additional info. base on my experience, and posted it here for woking people's reference and critique. ================================================================== Do not cook high-acid food or curry in the wok, it will react with the wok (provided it's a carbon steel or cast iron wok, non-stick or stainless steel will not have the problem). That means, No lemon and lime. (yeah, I know what you are gonna say: " a well seasoned wok will not ...") Tomato is fine given you have a well-seasoned wok, but the seasoning instruction in your note is weak, I can tell you from my experience that it will not give you a good seasoning on the wok any time soon. So how to get a good seasoning on the wok fast? Option 1, buy a pre-seasoned wok (more expensive), Option 2, seasoning yourself with the following instruction: -1. Line the oven bottom with foil 0. Turn on the oven for 500F. Yes, 500F 1. Clean the wok with soapy hot water. 2. Put it on stove top and burn it till dry 3. Rub on high smoking point oil (lard will be ideal) onto the surface - no lard? Bacon then. - What is high smoking point oil? Answer: oil that smoke at a higher temperature, Corn oil, peanut oil, soybean oil, 4.Oil should smoke the moment it hits the wok. 5. Put the wok into the oven upside down( so oil will drip onto foil) 6. Bake for 1 hr. 7. Turn off heat and wait till it cools down. 8. Repeat the process for 4 times and your wok will be as good as (if not better than) any of the pre-seasoned version on the market. To "wok" correctly, you need to understand this: Wok bottom is a big 'hot spot'. That means, you need to drop food in small quantity, and wok in batches because bottom of the wok is the ONLY part that is actually cooking, while the wall of the wok is to hold the food warm (unless you have a giant burner spitting our rocket-launching heat). One more note on wok selection. "Woking" is about high heat cooking, non-stick surface will break down @ 400F (given it's the top of line non-stick surface). Therefore, non-stick is not the ideal for true "woking". However, I do own a non-stick wok only for "mixing" to make "Lo- Mein". And I have another non-stick wok ONLY for Serving. Carbon steel and cast iron are the best candidates for wok. Cast iron is heavier, but it retains heat better. Cast iron wok was household staple in China, every family has one (or used to have one). Carbon steel wok is lighter and does the job. When select Carbon Steel Wok, keep an eye on the thickness of the steel. It should not be less than 1.5mm. Stainless steel wok is a good choice if it's fully claded (meaning at least 2mm of aluminum claded between two sheets of stainless steel from the bottom to the top of the wok), but it's very expensive (if you can find one. Calphalon has a line called Calphalon One. It's expensive but it does the job. If you have money to spend it might be a good option). A cheaper stainless steel wok only has a aluminum claded disc on the bottom of the wok. In my opinion it's worse than a 12" saute pan. One exception is Jamie Oliver's Professional Stainless Steel 12.5" Wok. It works well on the burner grates designed especially for wok that I got from China town for $5.99. It beats other disc bottom wok by having a larger dimension base bottom (that holds more heat). Where to buy wok? Sam's Club http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate....t=5&item=354627 Walmart The Wok Shop http://www.wokshop.com/products_main.... WorldMarket Never wash your wok with detergent after seasoning. Wok is not dish washer safe (duh..). Wok alternative: 12" and 14" skillet or fry pan. It has more flat cooking surfact conducting heat and cooking food. To be honest, if you only have a flat bottom wok sitting on a regular flat burner. You are better off using a 12" skillet or fry pan. A skillet or fry pan looks like this: \____________/----------====

I'm having some troubles with my wok and I was wondering if maybe some of you guys could offer a little insight. It's a 12" flat bottom wok that I use to cook on an electric stove top, I'm not sure what kind of metal it is made from, but it has little ridges on the underside. Anyways, I season it regularly with expensive peanut oil and have never had a problem with it. But over the last week or two it has been losing it's non stick. Fried rice has been sticking to the bottom in huge quantities, noodles in broth have been sticking and even pot stickers and vegetables. Sure, rice and noodles stick a little anyways, but the amount that sticks now is just ridiculous! I am not doing anything differently, and I'm cooking over high heat, using the same oil as normal and stirring everything like I normally would. It's just when I put things in after the oil it sticks right away to the bottom of the wok. I have seasoned the wok in an attempt to restore it, but oddly enough when I put the cold oil into my hot wok it smoked and then burst into flames as I was swirling it around. And this is with the same oil I have used for ages, Knife Brand Peanut Oil. Not recycled oil, fresh from the jug. What could it be that I'm doing wrong? I take care of it very well, but for some reason it is mad with me. It's only a year and a half old, and it's the first cooking vessel I ever got. What can I do? Thanks, this forum is great. My wok

Anyone has experience with their butcher block? http://www.wokshop.com/HTML/products/cleav...ping-block.html It's really cheap, but I am concerned it will split fair soon. The shipping is half the price too. Has anyone used it before, any experience?

I am interested in the simplest, most basic, Chinese technique for showcasing fresh produce. Imagine I have a bitter gourd, some garlic stems, and a green onion. What is the best technique to give them some wok-hey while still remaining al dente and maintaining their distinct flavors? My current technique is as follows: cut all the veg. into similar sized pieces. mince some ginger and garlic. heat the wok until it is smoking on the wok burner. add room temp. oil/lard and immediately add the garlic and ginger. When I can smell the garlic and ginger I add the veg. and toss a few times. Then I add a pinch of salt and M.S.G. and stir fry until they have reached the al dente stage. then I splash a cap full of Chinese rice wine and stir fry until it evaporates and serve. This gives the veg. a great flavor but I would like to improve my technique. What do other people do in this situation?

I've been wokking around for a couple of years now but have always been uncertain about something which manifests itself as fire about twice a year. I'm hoping somebody can help... Everything I've ever read about wok cooking says that in order to produce the desired wok flavor ("wok hei") you need extremely high heat. In fact, many sources say that this level of heat just isn't possible on a home electric range. The need for greater heat leads many wokkers to go outdoors where they can use propane burners to really heat things up. I also know the principle that "the wok heats alone." In other words, heat the wok, add the oil, and then the ingredients. So here's what happens to me twice a year: I put my carbon steel wok on the largest burner on my electrical stove at home. I turn the burner on high - it may not be rocket-engine heat, but it's as hot as I can get it. I let the wok get good and hot. Really good and hot. Then I add the oil, drizzling it around the sides so that it can warm up on the way down, something I read somewhere. I use peanut oil because its high smoke point. And almost as soon as the oil hits the center of the wok it bursts into flames. On goes the lid and out comes the smoke. For the next six months I do my wokking over lower heat where I know it's safe, yearning for the real flavor of the wok. And so gradually I creep upwards, letting it get hotter and hotter until one night the cycle is reborn out of the ashes of my flaming wok. Obviously I'm a bit confused here: if my electrical range is theoretically not capable of produceing wok hei heat, why does the oil still go up in flames? Wouldn't the problem be just as bad, if not worse, if I were using a powerful burner at higher temperatures outdoors? And of course, the more practical question is how can I crank my stove up as hot as possible and get what wok hei I can but avoid the fire?

I'd love to hearing opinions on the wok that weber has http://www.weber.com/bbq/pub/grill/accessory/chargear.aspx I notice it's stainless steel and I always thought carbon steel was the preferred wok material. Would love to hear if anyone thinks this wok would give good performance with the weber charcoal grill or if it is a gimmick. Cheers!

Where is a good Asian store in either Richmond or Burnaby to find a nice, cheap carbon steel wok? I know a fairly good one shouldn't be more than $20 or $25 or so but I just don't know where to find one. Any recommendations? Thanks, Shane

For my birthday, my wife gave me a brass wok. For some reason, I began to wonder if brass was a safe material for cooking. I decided to google it and came up with the following information. A link from a Canadian government agency suggested not to use unlined copper or brass and that it can lead to ingesting dangerous amounts of copper (I believe brass has a significant amount of copper). Another site says that unlined brass or copper cookware can develop verdigris, a highly poisonous substance. From Webster's: verdigris- 1 a: a green or greenish-blue poisonous pigment resulting from the action of acetic acid on copper and consisting of one or more basic copper acetates b: normal copper acetate Cu(C2H3O2)2·H2O ; 2: a green or bluish deposit especially of copper carbonates formed on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces. The link to the wok that I received is: http://importfood.com/brass_wok.html When I spoke to the gentlemen on the customer service line he said that in Thailand he always sees candy being made in brass woks but has not seen it for cooking. He thought that he did not see it used in cooking because it is more costly that a carbon steel wok or cast iron. Obviously the action during candy making vs. a stir fry is much different and not as rough on the wok. What are your thoughts. I brass a safe material for cookware?

I read here and there that hand-hammered woks last longer and are structurally more durable. Other than this claim and the authenticity of the hand-hammered wok, is there really any difference?