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Jason : So after a brief drooly detour to the LeCreuset links (thanks!) and a quick assessment of whether I could buy them in the UK if I visit London in spring as planned and then carry them back (no!) I'm back. Anyway, yes, I've wondered about the Tawa dishes too - and here is what I think it is. I think the dishes are cooked in regular woks and then flash fried in a tawa with butter just before serving. This is something commonly seen in Indian street food vendors (have you heard of pav bhaji? to die for) and something was quite popular in restaurants in India when I was still living there. I do not know if it is a traditional form of Indian cooking or a new one ...... and I'm not an expert by any means... so .......

I'm not sure this belongs here, but the same guy that used a fork to stir his eggs in my new non-stick calphalon, called to ask me how I like my wok -- since he scrubbed it clean for me. About 15 years of carbon, literally down the drain.

Its interesting that you say that tawa are always flat... because at a local Indian restaurant, Kinara, in NJ, they have a dish on the menu called "Chicken Tava" which they refer to as a wok/stirfry chicken dish. Do they use the Tawa in this dish, or is their some meaning to the alternate spelling with a V? PS: the Karahis are made by Le Creuset. And yes, I want one too.. http://www.lecreuset.co.uk/castiron/adventurous.asp It appears that they only have the Karahi in the UK catalog, not the US one: http://www.lecreuset.com/new/productguide_lc.php

Jason Karahi and Kadai are just alternate English spellings of the same Indian word. And what does Indian word mean anyway? In both Hindi and Marathi (two Indian languages) Kadai/Karahi are used to describe the kitchen utensils in discussion here. Both languages have 3 or 4 letters for varieties on the "d" sound - hence the variation. In any case, one major difference between a kadai and a wok is that kadai's are not designed to deliver the high heat, flash frying, stir frying effect that woks are. The shapes vary but are almost always more or less round bottomed. And tawas are always flat. But the reason I write, where on earth did you find those gorgeous kadais in the photographs in your post. I want one.

Clearly there are different types of Tawa, then. I have two. One is round and flat and is used by me for making chapati, the other is long, rectangluar and flat that I once (unsuccessfully) tried to use to make naan's with. One major difference between a chinese wok and the karahi is weight. I wouldn't fancy trying to toss food in a karahi as I can in a wok.

Youre referring of course, to the Karahi: Karahi are thicker walled than the chinese wok and not as deep, and flat bottomed. But fundamentally are very similiar. They are used for making curry and stir fry dishes, and also for making certain kinds of indian flatbreads. There's also the Tawa (although I've also heard of this sometimes called a Kadai, and the Tawa being this circular griddle thing specifically for making flatbreads), which is deeper than a Karahi. Pretty much the same thing as a wok, but like the Karahi, thicker walled and also flat bottomed.

Can somebody explain the difference (if any) between an Indian wok and a Chinese wok? What are woks used for in Indian cookery?

Talking about woks - have you seen the induction wok that Ming Tsai uses on his cooking shows? I went green with envy the first time I saw it and checked with Garland - $3000.00! The burner is made so that the wok (included) fits into it and can be heated to a tremendously high temperature at the sides as well as the bottom.

I have five or six woks of different sizes but for all practical purposes I prefer the flat-bottomed heavy steel woks with wooden handles, a 12" and a 14", I bought in San Francisco's Chinatown about fifteen years ago. They were made in the US and some time ago I saw the identical pans at the Broadway Panhandler but I do not know if they are still being produced. I also have a very cheap 16" that I use exclusively for deep frying ducks and whole fish. The metal is much thinner. It was the only flat-bottomed 16" I could find at the time but it seems to do the job. AllClad has a pan which is totally wok-shaped (I've forgotten how they name it) but with a wider flat surface at the bottom. It is a wonderful sauté pan but I would be reluctant to subject is to the kind of abuse I give my steel woks.

For my purposes I use a range of woks. Several largish steel woks, well seasoned. I'll be surprised if they don't outlast me. An electric wok for: steaming or quickly tossing off a very simple vegetable dish. Also for presenting something steamed at the dining table (seats 25) such as a dim sum or tofu item I want to appear at a particular time and for the blast of aromas when the lid is lifted. Two non-stick woks for egg dishes.

I'd appreciate any links to retailers selling these types of woks.

While I use it in NYC, I actually bought my wok in a cookware shop in Vancouver's Chinatown. Some thoughts on what to look for: 1) If you cook on a domestic gas stove I strongly suggest a flat-bottomed wok with a long handle. I feel that a 14" diameter is the best all-purpose size. When you use a wok with a traditional curved bottom and a ring I don't like the way the heat is directed inside the ring while leaving the rest of the wok quite cool. 2) A hand-hammered wok. Over the years I've seen woks that have circular hammer marks around the upper 2 inches of the interior edge of the wok. While I never really understood the significance of this aspect I've come to believe, through entirely empirical means, that the type metal that lends itself to this hand hammering also happens to heat up very quickly. 3) I often use an electric wok, not for stir-frying but for steaming. I set it on my kitchen counter and top it with 12" bamboo steamer baskets. It works perfectly for steaming a fish or some dumplings. 4) I like the idea of non-stick woks and usually keep a cheap one around. I just replace it as its surface deteriorates. In NYC there are 2 pretty good stores that specialize in Chinese cooking equipment. I don't know their names, but one is located on the south side of Grand St just west of Allen Street. The other is on the west side of The Bowery at Chatham Square just across from the HSBC bank. I don't know whether either carries hand-hammered woks.

Eddie - Could you be more specific. What did you like about it. I have a very small home stove with one burner that is oversized. When I put my wok on the stove I have room for little else. Frequently I serve multi-course Chinese dinners and go to great care to think them through ahead of time so that I'm not constantly cooking and I can enjoy the company of my guests. With this in mind I try to limit the number of items cooked in my wok to 2 courses. I often include a cold dish, a steamed dish, a braised dish, a soup and/or a boiled dish. This is how I get the variety I want without being governed by the limitations of my stove One of the most significant factors in keeping my cooking moving is how long it takes to reheat my wok, and how long it takes to get it extremely hot. I'm constantly cooking something, then cleaning out the wok and reheating it. With my old steel wok which wasn't very thick, but thicker than my new one, it would take 2-3 minutes to get quite hot, maybe even longer. My new wok gets quite hot in 30 seconds, and after a minute it's smoking like crazy. I don't even know whether the heat is uneven or not because when you stir-fry the constant and random movement of the food in the pan mitigates the problems caused by hot spots. In fact in many instances the hot spots are good, enabling me to color something more quickly than usual. This is the case when making pan-fried noodles for instance. The ability to retain and evenly distribute heat which we want in a Western saute or saucepan just isn't what we need in this instance.

Chinese Broccoli (Gai-lan), several ways Serves 4 as Side. One of our favorite vegetables, we frequently order Gai-lan when out for Dim Sum or other Chinese meals. It looks similar to Broccoli Rabe, but tastes like a cross between regular broccoli and asparagus with none of the bitterness of broccoli rabe. We generally prepare it Chinese-style, but it can also be prepared Italian-style, just like other forms of broccoli. Chinese Broccoli or Gai-lan, figure 1 bunch for 4 people With Oyster Sauce 1/4 c Oyster Sauce, best quality Sauteed with Garlic 1/3 c Peanut or Olive Oil 6 Cloves of Garlic, peeled and sliced Salt or Soy Sauce, to taste 1 tsp Sesame Oil, optional Blanch the vegetable: Set a large pot of water to boil, add salt when it comes to the boil. Have a large bowl of ice water ready. Prepare the Chinese Broccoli by trimming the cut ends, washing, then separate the leafy, thinner-stalked half from the larger stem half by cutting approximately in half. Blanch the vegetable, adding the thicker stemmed portion to the water about 1 minute before the thinner stemmed/leafy portion. After about another minute the vegetable will turn bright green.* Use a pasta scoop or spider web chan to remove the vegetable and shock in ice water. When cold, drain and saute the vegetables. Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce * If planning to serve immediately with Oyster Sauce, do not shock, but cook the vegetable just a little longer in the boiling water, then remove to a platter. Drizzle the Oyster Sauce all over the vegetable and serve immediately. Chinese Broccoli Sauteed with Garlic - Chinese Style Heat Peanut Oil in a wok and add the garlic and blanched Gai-lan. Stir fry until the vegetable is heated through and the garlic is lightly golden. Drizzle with Soy Sauce and Sesame Oil and serve. Chinese Broccoli Sauteed with Garlic - Italian Style In a very large skillet (or wok), place garlic slices and Olive Oil and bring up to heat, adding Gai-lan and a sprinnkle of salt while the garlic is still white. You can either briefly saute it to keep the vegetable crisp-tender, or lower the heat and cook it until wilted, like Broccoli Rabe. Keywords: Side, Vegan, Vegetarian, Kosher, Easy, Vegetables, Dinner, Chinese ( RG176 )

Fried Stuffed Lotus Root (Zha Ou He) Our friend Lin's mother made these for us when she was visiting from China. Here's a url: Lotus Root, Can you deep-fry it? "Fried lotus root was one of the holiday dishes you could see on many families' dining tables" especially for "Spring Festival." All ingredient measures are approximate below, Lin didn't give any measurements, I'm basing this on other Chinese dumpling fillings and her notes to me. As Lin said, "I don’t have the exact measure. It does not matter you have put in too much ground pork or too many scallions. Just follow your experience or instinct, and do not put too much sesame oil or salt." Whole Lotus Root Oil for deep frying Filling 1 lb Ground Pork 3 Scallions, chopped 1 T Soy Sauce 1 tsp Sesame Oil 1/4 tsp Salt Batter 1/4 c Flour 1 Egg Water Wash your fresh lotus root. If the skin looks very clean, keep the skin; if not, peel the skin. Steam or boil the whole lotus root until it is cooked. Cool then slice the lotus root crosswise into thick slices, then slice each of these in half, like a clamshell with one end still attached. While lotus root is cooking, stir the filling ingredients together. Optional seasonings include 5-Spice Powder, Ginger, Black Pepper. Prepare the batter: "Several tablespoonful of flour. Add 1 egg, and some water. Stir well. When it is well mixed, it should look like pancake mix, but a lot thinner." Spread some filling between the double sliced lotus root. Heat the oil in a wok or deep fryer. Dip each filled double slice into the batter. Then deep-fry it until it turns brown. Keywords: Appetizer, Side, Hors d'oeuvre, Intermediate, Pork, Vegetables, Dinner, Lunch, Snack, Chinese, Deep Fryer ( RG175 )

You make a good point, but it's not relevant to woks, because even heating is not what woks are about. These numbers are useful if your only goal is to minimize hotspots. They don't account for heat retention. A copper-bottomed pan will heat more evenly than steel because it's a better conductor, but it won't hold the heat as well for the same reason. If you wanted a cast-iron pan that heated as evenly as a copper pan, it would have to be almost an inch thick, and it would take forever to heat up. In the real world, though, the cast iron holds the heat so well that with sufficient pre-heating you end up with the appearance of even heat. You can mitigate this further by pre-heating a pan in the oven. But woks are a different case, as FG pointed out. You don't want to minimize hot spots.

I don't know how to make the nice quote boxes but this should do anyway. The rates for the commonly used metals in pans are as follows. The higher the number, the greater the speed of heat conductivity. Copper .94 Pure Aluminum .53 Cast Aluminum .33 Steel .16 Cast Iron .12 Stainless Steel .05 Using the following mathematical formula, the optimum thickness for even distribution of heat within a pan's interior surface, so that hot spots are avoided, can be calculated. thickness of metal x thermo-conductivity coefficient = 2.65 (THERMCO) The optimum thickness for metals most commonly used for pans is as follows: Copper 2.82 millimeters Pure Aluminum 5 millimeters Cast Aluminum 8.03 millimeters Steel 16.56 millimeters Cast Iron 22.08 millimeters Stainless Steel 53 millimeters I want to take exception to the values starting with the steel at 16.56 millimeters, Cast Iron at 22.08 and Stainless Steel at 53 millimeters. Who uses pans this thick. 16 millimeters is almost three quarters of an inch thick. There are 25.4 millimeters in an inch, so think about the numbers here. Stainless steel pans that are two nches thick? Something is wrong. I use a steel 14" wok and the thickness is about 3 millimeters or 1/8th of an inch. It works great and is almost pure black now. Nothing sticks and no teflon. This wok is used about five times per week. Blackduff

I have two Joyce Chen woks. They're both steel with some type of coating inside that is non-stick and does not scratch (I use metal utensils). One is about 11in and the other is 15in, They're both flat bottomed. I realise that these aren't traditional because they didn't need any seasoning but I love these two woks. I use them for soups, steaming, quick chile,deep frying, stir frys, and tempora. The cleanup is a snap and no special care is needed.

Shrimp Ajillo Serves 3 as Main Dishor 4 as Appetizeror 6 as Amuse. This is one of my favorite types of tapas. I've tried to recreate what we get served in the Spanish and Portuguese restaurants of Newark, NJ. Ingredient Notes: 1) The Spanish Paprika is optional but very highly recommended (it is worth going out to get it specifically for this dish), but don't substitute "regular" paprika if you don't have it, it would be better to just leave it out. 2) Sherry can be substituted for the Spanish Brandy if you can't find it, but I don't think it flambes the same, you would just use it to deglaze the pan. 3) The amount of garlic is approximate, I use about 1/2 a head, you may want to use less. 4) The size of the Shrimp isn't that important. If they are medium sized "regular" shrimp, it is best to peel and devein the shrimp. If they are fancy large shrimp, especially if head-on, I leave the shell intact. It is messy at the table, but the sensory experience of licking your fingers of the garlicy oil and sucking all the flavor from the heads is worth it. 8 Garlic Cloves, peeled & sliced 1/2 c Olive Oil, good quality 2 lb Shrimp (see notes above) 1 tsp Smoked Spanish Paprika 1/2 tsp Salt, amount approximate, to taste 1/4 tsp Freshly ground Black Pepper 2 T Spanish Brandy 2 T Parsley, minced Lemon Wedges Crusty Bread Add Garlic and Olive Oil to a large cool pan (I use cast iron or a wok) and heat gently. When you first detect the garlic aroma, add the Paprika and Shrimp and turn up the heat. Saute 3-5 minutes, until the shrimp are almost completely cooked, most of the greyness will be replaced with pinkness, but not all (use a long handled wooden spoon to keep everything moving). Add Salt & Pepper to taste. To Flambe: Push the shrimp towards the handle side of the pan. Holding the pan at a slight angle (empty side down), pour the Brandy (not directly from the bottle, have it waiting in a small ramikin) into the empty side of the pan. Allow the brandy to warm for a few seconds, then shift the pan to allow the flames to ignite the brandy fumes. As soon as it flames, stir the shrimp around until the flames die down. Sprinkle the shrimp with Parsley. Serve with Lemon Wedges on the side and warm crusy bread to not lose a drop of the garlicy oil. Keywords: Appetizer, Spanish/Portugese, Seafood, Intermediate, Main Dish, Amuse, Expert, Dinner ( RG162 )

Several years ago, I threw away my old cheap aluminum wok when I received an expensive (relatively) Atlas steel flat-bottomed wok as a gift. Strangely, this wok has never gotten seasoned. It looks exactly the same today as it did then. I confess I rarely cook with it, cuz food sticks! Does anyone have experience with this brand of wok? How do I season it? Should I just ditch it? edit: What I mean to say is that after stir-frying in it several times, it never lost its shiny stainless steel appearance and food continued to stick...so I gave up.

Yeah, its good that we have removable grills, our curved woks sit very nicely in the Garland.

Woks are really interesting to me because they cook based on a set of principles that are somewhat at odds with what we look for in Western-style cookery. The holy grail of Western cookware is evenness in heating and the avoidance of hotspots. But the goal of a wok is almost exactly the opposite: woks are about one big hot spot in the middle and much cooler areas as you move away from the center. When you get into a restaurant stir-frying situation, with one of those 100,000+ BTU/hr dedicated wok burners, it's the crazy-heat in the center combined with the relatively cool edges that allows one to cook amazingly good beef with broccoli in about a minute. A curved-bottom wok works best with a dedicated wok burner (or a burner with an interchangeable grill). Otherwise, a flat bottom wok will allow much better contact with the flame from the burner. One of the reasons woks are so personal is that a given size and shape might work really well with one burner -- soaking up the maximum amount of available energy -- but fail miserably with another.

We have 3 steel woks, all bought in NYC's chinatown over the last 8 years, all of the curved bottom variety. We have a large one with twin U-shaped handles, 1 medium and one slightly smaller one. The big one we use for deep frying and fried rice and noodles that requries heavy chan work, the smaller ones get used for just about everything. Next to the cast iron skillets the woks are probably the most used pans in the entire kitchen, we use them for literally everything, not just asian food -- although we do eat a lot of asian food.

Eddie - Could you be more specific. What did you like about it. Did you buy it in the NYC area? I am looking to buy a nice one. I have a nonstick flat bottom one also with a loose handle. Any places in NYC area that you would reccomend I look for a quality wok. johnjohn

My two woks (they are about 16" at the top) look exactly the same, except that it looks like one had a 50 lb. cement block dropped on the bottom of it. Whatever manufacturer imprint (in Thai) was ever on this is illegible. Remember, I've had it since mid-70's, and used at least twice a week ever since. They are really lightweight. But, I've used them for so long, I don't think I'd know how to cook in any other woks.