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I’m retired with lots of time to both garden and cook. Canning is a bit of a hobby, and we especially cook a lot of Mexican food (imagine that) and steaks—charred surface and true rare centers. Besides me in the kitchen are my son, DIL, and granddaughters. Two are amazing Hispanic cooks—the third does vegetarian fare, so wok-cooking is a new passion. I also bake quite a bit, so from pies, cakes, and cookies to bread, my oven gets a workout. With all this going on, a new LP gas range is up for consideration. It will replace a JennAire downdraft range, and my island’s current configuration will go away, in favor of some simpler stations. I’m impressed by Blue Star ranges, but need a downdraft vent, so I’ll be browsing appliances for a while. Hit me up with any ideas of how to incorporate all this into a dream retirement kitchen. A 36” range is as big as my kitchen can handle. Can I use a downdraft vent with a free-standing range? Thanks for having me here. Can’t wait to look around! mjhtx47

Kung Po Gai for supper last night, using up the leftover Crudités from the princesses' visit Then I put my life at risk making dim sum style braised chicken feet! Luckily, I had a huge wok with a big lid as the feet splattered like crazy even though I fried them really well first. I remember then why I deep fried them outside on a turkey fryer in the past! The fried feet were dunked into ice water, then braised in black bean garlic chili sauce in the Instant Pot. They were maybe over cooked at 30 minutes and natural release, but so lip smacking delicious!

@Kim Shook: Your char siu from the freezer looks great! After the multi-pot cooking marathon yesterday, it was single wok Spicy Udon noodles with fresh Shitaki mushrooms, been sprouts, char siu for supper. My bowl had extra fresh beansprouts...fresh and crisp!

Played in the kitchen yesterday! De-boned and stuffed chicken wings. man! Tedious job as the wings were smaller than what I'd like, but better portion control 😏 I made a bunch and cooked up 5. Put the rest into the freezer. Still had filling left. Stuffed some large shrimp and wrapped them in egg roll wrappers. Too big for wonton wrappers. Still had a bit of filling left, so I did the rest with wonton wrappers. Deep fried in a big wok! The assortment The stuffed wings Had Moo Gua soup earlier And did up a pack of country-style ribs as Char Siu for baos later...

As @liuzhou and @MokaPot said, abalone needs to be tenderized or slow cooking. I shucked, cleaned, and blanched the little abalone in hot water for a few minutes. The 10 little fellas and re-hydrated Shitaki mushrooms went into the liner pot of the Instant Pot with sauteed garlic, ginger slices, mushroom soaking liquid, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and cooking wine. The whole lot was cooked for 50 minutes on high pressure. Everything was just tender, and each abalone was 2 bites! I also had some scallops on the shell to cook up. These were steamed on a rack in the wok with the Shanghai Bok Choy . The liquid from the abalone was perfect, thickened with cornstarch slurry. There wasn't much flavour to the abalone other than from the braising liquid. I was dreaming about the fresh baby abalone we enjoyed at a seafood buffet on the 15th floor of our hotel in Soeul, but alas, the ones I cooked didn't quite measure up.😉

Followed by wok hei'ng?

Still working the chow fun jonesing. Yesterday, stir-fried with some pork shoulder strips and green pepper. Stir fried choy sum alongside. I will note that the rice noodles are probably best used within a day or two of purchase, or maybe frozen? These were a few days out, but still worked, though I had to smush them around in the wok more than when I first bought them.

I have been jonesing for chow fun for quite a while. There was a vendor in Chinatown who would sell 3 or 4 different types of rice noodles; one could get a sackful for like $2. But when I went for a walk the other day, she was no longer to be found. Other stores I stopped into led to no success either. So I asked around, and found out a place called Kong Kee sells them, and I took another walk in that direction yesterday... I don't know what those characters translate to in English, but the address matched the one I googled. And sure enough, rice noodles! More expensive than before, but a few bucks netted me about 3 or 4 lbs. of them... As discussed elsewhere, wok hei is not happening too often at home. Now Serious Eats has figured out how to do it, (they call it torch hei) but I'm not in the mood for firing up the torch, and or burning down my apartment. So - I just stir-fried them, with a little beef and greens... They hit the spot.

A dinner I made with leftovers from the care packages that went to the kids. Black Bean Garlic Beef & Bitter Melon over Ho Fun. Good fresh Ho Fun is hard to find. At our local store, they are packed so tightly and vacuum sealed that they basically crumble when they hit the wok. Now, I use the dried noodles that I hydrate before cooking. They retain a bit of chew and so easy to stir-fry. I love the fresh noodles when I can get into the big city Chinese grocery stores. Had tofu and bell peppers in the fridge that needed using up. So, it was spicy tofu. ground pork, onions, and peppers in spicy toban sauce. Tossed in some ground up Szechuan peppercorns for that extra zing! A former colleague is married to a Chinese lady who has not done much Western cooking, like his favourite - lemon meringue pie. They were coming into town for apptns, so I made him a pie last night for pick up today! I only gave them half a pie as his wife is keeping close tabs on his calories!🤪 It helps us out too as we don't want to eat a whole pie!

I did the 25 minutes @ 194F then i put it into a 132F bath for probably 30 minutes, Then into the Wok i sauteed the mushrooms and shallots in ( i luckily had them reserved) until the liquid was evaporated. (about 10 minutes). Again, i would not recomend this chefsteps recipe, and i will stick to tradtional, and at least try the instant pot recipe. I might bump this thread when i do. I just don't want people to see my results and assume chefsteps had anything to do with the final results because their results were laughable.

"This is my rifle wok. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. My rifle wok is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle wok is useless. Without my rifle wok I am useless. I must fire my rifle wok true. I must shoot cook straighter than my enemy, who is trying to kill out-cook me. I must shoot out-cook him before he shoot out-cooks me. I will."

I have a phony All Clad wok I'd love to get rid of. It's probably about 15 years old and used maybe twice. I haven't touched it, but since it's been hanging on my pot rack for all that time, I'd assume it has a very healthy layer of settled aerosolized oil mixed with dust on it. In fact, I can practically guarantee it. It was quite expensive when I got it - do you think anyone would want to pay to take it off my hands or should I try to donate to some sad sap? OTOH, I got a Joyce Chen carbon steel wok relatively recently and have already used it a bunch of times. It lives on my stovetop since it (was pre foot burning) is the most common thing I use lately.

A few nights ago: Scallops, duck-fat and chicken stock "broasted" creamer potatoes, Belgian endive in the style of puntarelle, with anchovies and vinaigrette. My food stylist sucks. I jogged walked over to Chinatown (wait, I live in Chinatown, I walked west on Grand Street to Ken Hing (by the way @KennethT - they don't have that refrigerated curry paste you mentioned)), to buy some stuff for dinner. Though this stuff was in inventory, and pickled the day before: Cucumber pickle, Szechuan style. Cabbage and carrot sweet and sour pickle (Cantonese style?). In the freshly cleaned and seasoned wok... Shanghai bok choy. Simple stir-fry. Lo mein, with chicken, shitake, cabbage, snow peas, scallions, etc. Very good.

At this point, pandemic confinement is bringing out all sorts of weirdness (in me, the cat, et al.), I decided this needed to be used... Since I'm cooking a fair amount of Asian cuisine, why not? It was on a top shelf, kinda filthy as it hasn't been used in years, a nice scrubbing and re-seasoning did it proud. It's a Joyce Chen carbon-steel (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), probably heavier than I remember, cause when I went to do some flipping, I almost broke my wrist. I moved a phony All=Clad wok to where this one was...I'm going for authenticity!

Knee deep in house moving day, so no cooking. Where's the wok? Packed. So delivery lunch. Actually not too bad. Stir fried beef with pickled baby bamboo shoots. Nicely spiced. Rice and a negligible soup.

Moe's breakfast (I'm taking to work for lunch). Beef Black Bean and Black Pepper stir fry. Thinly sliced a thick NY strip steak that I had planned to grill last night for dinner and didn't. Instead of using the wok, I used this big round cast iron griddle pan that covers two burners on the stove. I forgot about this pan, probably because it is so big and heavy. I like it better than my Wok. Seared the beef, removed and then added the vegetables, onions, peppers, red and green, and thai chili peppers, fresh garlic, julienned ginger. Finished with a little broth, black bean sauce, pepper sauce, tossed the beef again to coat and served over rice.

Usually in January and into February I bring back some of my favorite Asian dishes, starting with this BBQ Pork Lo Mein. I love making it at home so I can be creative, mixing up the ingredients but always keeping the same noodles and sauce. I'm not constrained by a menu, don't wait for delivery, and the leftovers are delicious cold. For breakfast! 12 oz. fresh Chinese egg noodles 3 tbsp. soy sauce 1 1/2 tbsp. oyster sauce 1/2 tbsp. Chinese rice wine or dry sherry 1 1/2 tsp. honey 1 tbsp. vegetable oil 1 tbsp. sesame oil 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 tbsp. grated ginger 3 green onions, cut in 1" lengths 6 shiitake mushrooms, stem cut off, sliced 8 oz. Chinese BBQ pork, cut in strips 1 1/2 cups fresh bean sprouts Bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Add the noodles and cook for 2-3 minutes. Drain the noodles and set aside. In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, oyster sauce, Chinese rice wine and honey. Heat a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat and add the vegetable oil and sesame oil. Add the garlic and ginger and quickly stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the green onions and mushrooms and stir-fry for another 1 minute. Add the Chinese BBQ pork and the noodles and stir-fry another 1 minute. Add the sauce and the bean sprouts and toss so to coat the noodles. Serve hot.

Mushrooms and parsley were a different matter. Actually my younger son is a picky eater, as I've mentioned many times before. My older has a friend from China and enjoyed many non-western delicacies at his mother's table. The friend dined here. He described his mother's cuisine as "burnt wok food".

Hey all, chicken wing R&D time! Kenji writes that double cooking is the way to go for the crispiest wings. In his method, he "confits" the wings in oil, lets them cool, and then flash fries them very hot. He also writes that Danny Bowien does something similar, but freezes them and fries the par-cooked wings from frozen. I tried doing Kenji's confit thing but it ruined my wok (but produced great results once fried). In the second round, I par-cooked the wings in a circulator (at 150º? for 2hrs? Don't remember precisely), froze them, and fried from frozen. In both cases, the end product was really good. I know that commercial kitchens fry frozen already-cooked wings all the time - but when I did it, I got volcanic levels of oil bubbling and spattering in the first 10-20 seconds (which honestly didn't surprise me), and had I used a straight-sided pot rather than a wok, I probably would've had a grease fire. Is there something different about a commercial fryer that prevents such a violent reaction? I will be doing these at my bar in standard commercial fryers, so I'm curious how commercial kitchens avoid crazy oil flare-ups

Picked up 2 pkgs of lamb chops - price reduced by 50% - gotta love my Safeway down the street! Trimmed the meat off the 7 chops, marinated with salt, pepper, and cumin in the fridge for the day. Heated the cast iron wok to smoking and seared the bones first, added chunks of onion, then the slices of lamb. Eaten with curry cauliflower and gingery bean sprouts. I REALLY enjoyed gnawing on the crispy bits on the bones.

Got a new wok today so of course I had to try it out! Char siu with young bok choy, snap peas, mushrooms and onion in a sweet sauce of hoisin, soy and cream sherry.

@David Ross, I looked at a number of recipes and most were similar with minor differences. I went this this one from The Woks of Life website - Cantonese Soy Sauce Pan-Fried Noodles. I toasted some sesame seeds to garnish with, and I adjusted the seasoning slightly, adding more sesame oil and a little more soy sauce. And I used more green onion. I would definitely make this again. Sooner rather than later. Really enjoyed it. The fresh noodles are sold in just about every grocery store as @Okanagancook mentioned. There are a number of brand names. This is the brand I bought.

Dinner last night was a package of Yakisoba frozen noodle/veggie mix (Costco), thawed. Added mushrooms, green beans, cabbage and chicken with a little extra soy and hoisin sauce and stir-fried in my new Helen Chen wok which I am really liking a lot.

I'm baffled as to why why cast iron would be difficult to clean? I have more problems cleaning my teeth. I clean my cast iron woks and skillet more quickly, but have a few more than four teeth..

Agree. I only have one non-stick pan, which I only ever use for scrambled eggs, but as I rarely make them, it doesn't get much use. Had it for years and it's still as new. All my other pans are cast iron - three woks and one skillet. If properly seasoned and cared for, they become totally non-stick very quickly without the negative attributes of non-stick coated pans (high temperature sensitivity, wear and tear and particularly, possible carcinogenics.) The only exceptions are a stainless steel casserole dish (also seldom used) and a dirt cheap, small stainless pan for boiling or, more often, poaching eggs.