Search the Community

When we bought our house, along with a lot of furniture I inherited a full set of Emeril cookwear. Sturdy, heavy as hell, with a thick copper pad sandwiched between the stainless base and the pan body, and entirely satisfactory. My husband prefers non-stick cookwear so he can scrub away to his heart's content, but I think he's remembering the bad old days of nonstick pans. In any case I'm not going to replace the Emerils, even though the high-sided saute pan (I guess you could call it a chicken fryer) is almost too heavy for me to pick up one-handed. Depends on which hand, of course. I also still have some of the old Revereware but I usually don't use them. The only one I use is a tall saucepan that works well for popcorn. And then there's cast iron. Three skillets, a wok (don't ask), a dutch oven, and a comal (griddle) that I use constantly. It lives on the stove.

K-R has made multiple designs over the years — the newer ones work like this, and they're amazing: I have lots of stuff from the Guardian article, of course: Ice cream maker — found an old Simac at a thrift store for $15 (!) and I use it occasionally to good effect. I hated my "freeze the bowl" one that I had prior. The compressor is really necessary for me to be bothered with it, but I'm not entirely sure I'd spend the money on a new one. Honey dipper — ok, I don't use it much, but it's also one of the smallest and cheapest things in my kitchen -- who cares? Popcorn machine — have one, but have mostly moved over to making my popcorn in a wok. So I guess this fails the test. If we made popcorn more often I'd get a whirly pop. Coffee grinder — I classify this as a medical necessity because my brain does not work without it. Bread maker — I unapologetically love mine. Great for sandwich bread on a weekday and great for dough when I want to do something fancier. Garlic press — someone mentioned on a Splendid Table episode recently that opposition to garlic presses is kind of a class thing in the UK, which I found fascinating. I use mine frequently but not exclusively. I have never gotten that side-of-the-chef's-knife garlic paste thing to work for me, though. As should be obvious from the image above, garlic getting stuck or wasted is not an issue with a well designed press; I have never seen one as useless looking as the one in the article. Electric juicer — I suspect they mean the grinding sort, which I don't have, but I do have a citrus juicer. I like it, but don't really use it all that often. I should use it more!

I got some good wok hei going the other day. Then I went out into the yard to...

No Searzall for you? Serious Eats talks about torches and wok hei here...seems as if they are in disagreement with some posters.

Wok hei is not my main goal for the torch. And I agree that wok hei is not needed in most dishes, as well as that the flavor a torch will bring is not exactly wok hei. I do hope that it will give some grilled flavor, which I think complements many dishes (even if it's not necessary). For example, a few things I might use it on: - Vegetables for salsa, or other salads/sauces where charred flavor is wanted. - Neapolitan pizza, when I feel like having the more traditional texture-flavor. I imagine that I can shorten the baking time to just until the dough is cooked through, then proceed to torch it so that it can some charred crisp spots without drying or over-cooking the cheese. - Browning/melting things that don't fit a pan without turning on the broiler (casseroles, things topped with cheeses etc). - And also charring ingredients in order to add flavor to dishes where it works well - fried rice, some noodles dishes and also non-Asian dishes like (vegetarian) burgers and grilled corn - Any other ideas?

I have a torch I use when cooking, but there is no way it can give wok hei! That only comes from a wok, well seasoned from contiuous daily use over a long period of time. But I've said many times before,wok hei is a concept only Americans seem to obsess about. Most Chinese cooks aren't interested.

I agree with @ElsieD and the others. I recently moved into a kitchen with no gas service and plan to have 2 countertop induction hobs. I have teh first one (the relatively inexpensive one) now and will be bringing in the other, expensive one, soon. Even the cheap one is a pleasure to use - the near instant heating for pans, super fast water boiling, plus I can stand near it and not get hot like I would have with gas. For water boiling type stuff, I've been using an old Le Creuset enameled cast iron dutch oven and I'm amazed that I can have water boiling in it, and still grab the handles without a pot holder. I also have a carbon steel wok which is great to use with it - even though I don't have super fine power control on the cheap unit. And if I want to quickly blanch something - I can put maybe 6-8 cups of water in the wok and it will be boiling in about a minute. For the thin carbon steel, when the cheap one cycles on and off, I can definitely see when this happens if I have a small amount of liquid simmering in it - and I have also burned some things once or twice due to a hot spot that I wasn't constantly stirring - like I would be with a stir fry. Eventually I'm going to get a stainless pan with aluminum or something in the core - that should help distribute the hot spots more evenly than the carbon steel.

I do have a beautiful, well seasoned, just short of 12 inch cast iron wok -- or since it is Japanese, what they call Chinese cooking vessel. But since I am afraid to ruin it, what I usually grab is my banged up 3-ply Thai stir fry pan.

Well, as one old person, I can recommend a 30 cm (just short of 12 inch) cast iron wok. These seem to be the smallest on offer here. And smaller woks work just fine! They have the benefit of being lighter. I still use 34 cm woks, but as the years go past, it's becoming more difficult to life and toss the things.

I just came across this. The most common size for a domestic wok here is 35 cm - just under 14 inches. And they are commonly used to cook multiple dishes at one meal, for a lot more than two people. The way to go. The vast majority of woks used in China on a daily basis are carbon steel. I wouldn't buy anything else.

Curious, what was your seasoning process? I'm looking at shifting over to carbon steel wok after some disappointing experience with a tri-ply.

Hi, I'm Henri from Finland, near Helsinki. I'm currently drawn into making frozen delights - ice cream, sorbet etc. Challenging stuff! Otherwise its been mostly Asian/wok etc. Nice to be here! //HS

What about a full ring/rack like what they make for woks (click)? It'd have to have legs to raise the rack to mid-pan. If the center isn't blocked by food, then you'd still have good convection air circulation. There's a steamer rack, too (click) that might work, too but might need to be a bit taller depending on the thickness of whatever is being air-fried on the bottom layer. I don't have a dog in this fight (to quote TV's Dr. Phil) but it seems like there's an easy answer out there. Maybe eGullet needs its own line of cookware and accessories.

Yes, I've seen a few. He seems the real deal, but I find his videos rather boring to watch. I mean, 10 minutes of watching someone stirring stuff in a wok? He needs a editor.

Related to our discussion in the wok-cooking thread, how do you cook the orzo? Do you just use a pot on another burner? Also, how many burners (hobs) do normal Chinese kitchen have? I'd think there would be only 1 since everything is usually cooked in the wok anyway...

I haven't posted many dinners recently. It's been a strange week. Still is. Wok-braised chicken with morels and Agaricus subrufescens or 姬松茸 (jī sōng róng), also known as almond mushroom, mushroom of the sun, God’s mushroom, mushroom of life, royal sun agaricus, himematsutake. Served with orzo. Braise included Shaoxing wine, garlic, shichimi togarashi, coriander leaf, scallions, potato starch slurry for thickening. Photographed through steam.

My building has no gas service, so everything is electric. A standard US electric oven uses both 240V (for the heating elements) and 120V (for the controls/convection fan, etc). I decided not to get a standard US oven, which typically utilizes a 240V 40 or 50A circuit breaker (I use my CSO - there's only 2 of us - the amount of times I really need a full size oven I can count on one hand, especially since we're no longer having big parties and I'm cooking for liek 12 people at once or apps for 40) - so, instead, I had them install a 240V 30A breaker that just feeds a duplex 240V outlet (with 6-20R receptacles) which I will use for 2 240V induction burners. I got one 3500W cheap one - great for bringing a pot of water to boil, etc. and I'm going to get a Vollrath 2600W fancy induction unit which you can vary the power level in 1% increments or use temp mode and set a temp - it has both a pan sensor (supposedly the most accurate in the industry) and also a liquid probe which will be great for deep frying. it's like a control freak but 1/2 the price. They make it in 3500 and 4600W power levels, but I don't think it's necessary to have 2 super high power ones. I think the 2600W one will still be more powerful than the gas burner in my old apartment. Finally, I got a 15,000BTU butane burner (liek what she uses on hot thai kitchen) and I've used it a couple times - it was great for stir frying in the wok (albeit a little light, so it wants to move around a bit) but was almost too powerful for simmering a curry - in fact, I haven't taken it past 1/2 power yet because it makes so much heat, the sauce splatters all over.

Dry-frying in a wok is still a very common technique in Chinese cooking. For beans, I use the same technique as Fuchsia Dunlop gives in her "The Food of Sichuan (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)". Basically they are stir-fried in the wok with only a tablespoon or so of oil, for around 6 minutes. They are removed and some chillis, Sichuan peppercorns, finely chopped garlic, ginger and scallions are fried until fragrant then the beans returned to the wok and tossed to mix. Add salt and serve. That said, she does suggest deep-frying as an alternative.

Forgive me for being late to the discussion. I use a stainless steel wok shovel, similar to what @liuzhou posted. One of my happiest kitchen purchases of all time. I am also fond of wooden wok implements but I don't as a rule use wood for meat. If I crumbled ground meat adding it to the pan I'd be vainly scrubbing my greasy fingers in the sink as the ground meat charred and vaporized while the smoke alarm went off. Both of them.

I have always known such a tool as a wok shovel.

I have one, only used it a few times and it's been in a drawer for many years. I use my wooden "spoontula" (a word I just made up) that I bought at an Asian grocery years ago for stir-fries, but II use it for almost everything in a pan or wok.

I live in what is arguably one of the most culturally diverse, high quality food neighborhoods in NYC, possibly the US and maybe the world - NYC's East Village. Within a few blocks of me is a decent representation of food from almost any country (or region) you can think of, all of whom will deliver to my door (actually, the front desk in the lobby due to covid restrictions). With that being said, after roughly 6 weeks of eating almost nothing made by my own 2 hands aside from a salad (due to packing/moving/unpacking/and rehabbing the old place so I can get as much of the security deposit back as is possible after living in a place for 15 years), I was so happy last night to finally make a homemade dinner - and one I've been especially jonesing for - a Nyonya chicken curry called Ayam Buah Keluak - chicken in black nut curry. Well, sort of - I have no access to the keluak (the black nuts) that I'm aware of, and I certainly don't yet have the week it requires to process the keluak so it's not poisonous. The curry has no coconut milk - it's made with water or stock, and a paste made from the SE Asian kitchen sink - lemongrass, galangal, chillies, curry leaves, shallots, candlenuts, tamarind just being the beginning and one of the dominant flavors - shrimp paste, called belacan (pronounced bla-chen) in Malaysia/Indonesia. I make a large batch of the rempah (the spice paste) since it's time consuming, then portion and freeze - I usually get about 8-9 meals for 2 out of 1 batch of rempah, and had 2 meals worth left in the freezer. I also don't have the new kitchen fully set up yet - there are still boxes everywhere, as well as a partially assembled kitchen cart (thank you Wayfair for sending 2 of one piece and 0 of another) so it took twice as long to make as normal, but I am already loving being in this kitchen. I don't even have my induction hobs yet (there's no gas service in this building), but I did get a 15,000BTU butane powered camping stove that I used for the first time last night. Holy crap that thing is powerful! It is a lot more powerful than the largest burner in my old apartment. Most of the time I had it barely on to keep a perfect simmer, but was able to crank it up when stir frying the veggies in my carbon steel wok.

I buy them live. Sometimes, they do jump out of the wok! But these ones were dead before I cooked them. When I cook them shell and head on, it can be fun in the kitchen catching the more energetic ones who object to being tossed into hot oil.

Just finished our reno. New cabinets, new sink, new gas range with powerful hood fans, stamped tin backsplash, new stone island countertop, new range-side laminate countertop. Whole thing took two weeks - bought a new carbon-steel wok to celebrate!

Well, that's fair. I've never had it. I grew up with parents who really had limited cooking abilities. My mother grew up Kosher, my dad? Hard to know what he did before he became my dad. We ate a lot of local Chinese and local deli food. Then I moved to Wisconsin for a year and lived on soup mix and A and W burgers and root beer. Then I moved to New Mexico and survived happily on great cheap family restaurant food: bowls of red and green chile, beans, enchiladas. In those days we wouldn't be caught dead at Taco Bell. Then I moved to CA, lived on the border of SF Chinatown and discovered some basic wok cooking, mine and others. Then I married a native CA boy with a mainly vegetarian family that lived on veg lasagne,strange tofu casseroles and big salads that were also strange. Except for my husband, who ate everything and still does, even as I've become finicky. So, mincemeat pie? What exactly is it?