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I've posted versions of this before but do so again without shame. It's one of my favourites. Actually, the only variation is in what carbohydrate I serve it with: rice, couscous or orzo. It works with each. Anyway, tonight orzo. I marinate 1 cm cubed pork tenderloin in plenty of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, crushed coriander seeds for at least an hour. Overnight is better. The mixture should be quite oily as no further oil will be used in the frying. Boil the orzo until cooked, then drain and keep warm. Assemble a tomato and onion salad with basil and a lemon vinaigrette. Heat a wok until smoking, then stir fry the pork with the marinade until cooked through. No extra oil needed. Serve and eat. Salad

Here is a typical wok set-up in China. This is outside a small photographer's studio near my home. Mainly passport type photos from what I can see. I spotted it this noon. Rather than close the shop / studio for lunch the woman photographer makes lunch on the street outside her place. The shop next door is a hairdressing place and the staff there (about 4) take turns each day to make lunch on a similar set-up. As do many small businesses.

I highly recommend the pow single handled woks from the Wok Shop. I have many woks, most of them schlepped back from China and much more expensive, but I return time and again to my Wok Shop wok as my favorite to use day to day. They are incredible bargains. Incidentally, the single handled wok is more of a northern style (and also frequently used in Taiwan), and the short dual handled woks more from the south and east and Sichuan. I have both, but the single handled wok is much easier to use, particularly on a western burner. Chinese professional burners do a much better job of aiming the heat at the bottom of the wok, but the western burners have much more distributed heat, and will heat your handles to the point at which they can't be handled with a dishtowel and require serious heat protection for your hands.

It is shamefully simple. I use Trader Joe's Thai Red Curry Sauce (which I see is now available on Amazon: Trader Joe's Thai Red Curry Sauce) and usually use leftover chicken. This time it was pieces I cut from the Korean BBQ chicken I did the other night. I start with a little peanut oil in a hot wok, to which I add any vegetables suitable for stir fry, this time it was onion, cubanelle peppers, zucchini coins, carrot slivers and some chopped garlic. When the vegetables are just about done, I add the curry sauce, chicken, and a wee bit of chili oil to bring up the heat a little bit and serve it with jasmine rice. HC

One of my woks is made in Japan: http://amzn.com/B016B9ZZ12

In cities, 99% of people use these: fuelled by either bottled gas or, more recently, piped gas. My apartment has piped gas which does throw out at a higher pressure, giving me more heat. Also popular in recent years are free-standing portable induction cookers necessitating flat bottom woks. These are mainly used for hot pots, which do not require such high heat, but can be conveniently placed on the dining table. I do, however, see people using them every day for stir frying at their workplace - usually outside small shops where the staff rustle up lunch. In the countryside , naked fire burning in an old oil drum is very common. Fuelled by gathered wood or by coal briquettes. The briquettes were common in the cities 20 years ago, but have largely been outlawed for environmental reasons. Beijing smog 20 years ago was almost entirely domestically produced.

Yes. The wok referred to in the PF Chang video linked to in @jemartin 's first post is a Beijing wok as shown in the video. It reads: Beijing Wok 36cm 10 pieces. The company is Summit Kogyo, 123-1 Matsuhashi Tsubame-shi, Niigata, Japan Website: http://www.tetsunaberyu.jp They do not appear to have a retail outlet and some of their woks have minimum purchase amounts of 10 and upwards. They do so sell a few individual woks through Chinese website Alibaba here, but not the model in the video. Amazon would be a lot easier and safer. _______________________________ I can point out something that has changed in the last few years and it isn't woks. That rather hysterical Washington Times article linked to (twice) in the original post is seven years old. Things have much improved, and anyway there has never been a case reported of a Chinese wok being contaminated with lead or anything else. On an aside, I have never seen anyone use a wok burner domestically in over 20 years in China. I wouldn't know where to buy one.

FWIW, The Food Lab: For the Best Stir-Fry, Fire Up the Grill by J. KENJI LÓPEZ-ALT IMO, he makes a mistake in not elevating the wok a bit above the charcoal chimney—which hampers the draft.

You want a Peking/Beijing style wok. I'd suggest one of these from Korin. I discuss my recent burner purchase over in the other thread from 2005. Though I just purchased my burner in 2018, the design isn't markedly different from the one in the original post from more than a decade prior.

My post was about a lot more than just wok technology... it also discusses burners and the best items from a product safety perspective based on specific criteria. The thread from 2005 you referred to makes no mention of this, and does not discuss products from the perspective of the product safety criteria I mentioned in my initial post. The available products on the market (woks, burners) have changed a lot in 13 years. Companies have surely introduced many new products since then, and taken old ones off the market. The basic wok or burner technology may be the same, but new companies come along and introduce new burners, some of which may be higher quality, have lower prices, be more efficient, be more durable, or be better in some other way. Even if a company releases a burner or wok in 2005 that seems to work well at that time, that may later be taken off the market and replaced with other newer products for product safety reasons, durability issues, design flaws, or other issues. For example, while this wok is still on the market and presumably uses the same wok technology as many woks from a long time ago, reviewers of this particular product on the Amazon page are clearly criticizing this product because of design flaws and durability issues associated with the handle breaking off during cooking. There may be similar issues with some particular burner from 2005, there may be better burners available in 2018 that don't have these design flaws or durability issues, or perhaps a particular burner or wok model from 2005 referred to in the thread is no longer even available. But again, all of that aside, the thread you referred to makes no reference to the product safety issues I brought up in my initial post.

So? I have two woks, which are used every day. One is 18 years old and the other about a year younger. I would still recommend them. Wok design hasn't changed for millennia.

Wok technology has not changed that much.

There are already several threads discussing this, such as this one. If you search for 'wok' using the search feature at the top of the page, you will find many more.

I'm interested in learning to cook Chinese food with a similar flavor quality as you would get in a good Chinese restaurant with a lot of wok hei. I did a small amount of reading from books like Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge and Breath of the Wok to get some background knowledge on this topic, but still have some questions. I purchased this burner to get more heat and increase the wok hei in my stir fries, which claims to have 65,000 BTU output (I saw many people on these forums mention using it in other threads, so I'm guessing it's a good choice, but just wanted to check). There appear to be videos of people cooking on it on the Amazon page with traditional round-bottom woks, so I'm assuming it will work well with round bottom woks. This burner should also have plenty of BTUs to get restaurant-quality wok hei, right? I saw there were other burners on the market that have higher BTUs, but I thought they might not be as good for this purpose since they were not purpose-built for wok cooking. Can any of you comment on this? Before realizing that round-bottom woks are better and allow cooking with less oil, I purchased this wok from my local Sur la Table, which is a 14" flat-bottom carbon steel wok imported from Taiwan. Now I am somewhat interested in finding a more authentic/traditional carbon steel wok with a round bottom for use with the new burner I mentioned above, but am having trouble finding one I like. I'm trying to find one sold by a reputable company which is produced in a country with decent cookware regulations and safety laws to minimize health risks associated with lead contamination in cookware, such as Japan. (I'm hoping to avoid woks from countries such as China, because of scary stories like this, this, this, this or this about product safety or reliability issues). While this wok fails my lead safety requirements I just mentioned, it is the type I should be looking for to get this wok hei on my new burner, right? I was wondering, because I noticed in videos that Chinese restaurants like PF Chang's they use woks that are all one metal piece with no wood on them, and the handles are always made of the same metal that the wok itself is made of. Can anyone else comment on this? Do you use woks with wooden handles for ultra high-heat Chinese cooking, or do you prefer the woks that are all metal and have metal handles? Does anyone have suggestions for good woks that meet my criteria mentioned above? Would my Sur la Table wok be a bad choice for use with my new high heat burner because of the wood handles and flat bottom? PF Chang's restaurants say in their YouTube video that they use these carbon steel woks from Japan because Japan makes the best woks for this style of high-heat cooking, but unfortunately they don't provide information about the company. The building says "Summit" on it, but I could not find any Summit brand woks on Amazon unless they come from third-party sellers (not sure how reputable they are). If anyone knows where I could get one of these Japanese carbon steel woks they show in the video (or something similar you personally think is of great quality for my purposes), that would be terrific.

Why do Chinese recipes call for adding dried peppers directly to hot oil in the wok? When you add dried Japones or Thai Peppers directly to hot oil in wok they end up being like dried out shoe leather and have to be picked out of the stir fry! Many Hunan or Schezuan recipes call for this. I ask because in Mexican cooking dried peppers are reconstituted in boiling water first and then usually put in blender to make sauce. What am I missing?????

You have to laugh at this line I wrote, "It can be used not only as a sauce, but added to mashed potatoes and baked as a casserole; it salves the appetites of vegetarians, or better yet, simply served as a warming cream soup." Prawns in Cauliflower Curry Sauce Serves 4 Although this recipe appears to have a large number of ingredients and seemingly endless number of preparation steps, it is worth it in terms of flavor and opportunity. This Cauliflower-Curry Sauce opens up a myriad of possibilities for other dishes. It can be used not only as a sauce, but added to mashed potatoes and baked as a casserole; it salves the appetites of vegetarians, or better yet, simply served as a warming cream soup. Once the garlic is roasted and the sauce prepared, the actual cooking of the prawns is a quick, hot wok stir-fry with the sauce added just before service. M Easy Roasted Garlic Cloves 5 cloves garlic, peeled Olive oil Salt and black pepper M Cauliflower Curry Sauce 1 medium size head of cauliflower ½ tsp. tumeric 2 tbsp. salt 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper (or to taste) 1 small yellow onion, peeled and chopped ½ tsp. coriander 2 tbsp. butter 1 cup heavy cream 2 tbsp. olive oil 1 tbsp. curry powder 2 cups chicken stock 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. cardamom 1 tsp. black pepper ½ tsp. mace M 16 large raw prawns Salt and black pepper 2 tbsp. canola oil 1 tsp. sesame oil ½ cup chopped chives (substitute sliced green onions) Fresh lemon wedges for garnish M

Thanks! It used to be available down here in So Cal but no longer. I was told that it was due to a family dispute but I didn't know if that was just the long distance distribution or if it was still available locally. I'll look forward to your wok adventures! And back on topic, I posted my lunch over in the Six Seasons thread. Radishes with Tonnato, Slivered Almonds (subbed in for the recipe's sunflower seeds) and Lemon:

Nope, but I'm sure it's sold at Asian markets all throughout the City. Speaking of which (this is OT), I'm starting to get into Chinese cooking. I will start a thread on that soon or join an existing one. Anyway, B bought a non-stick wok for me at this store for $20 that was made in Korea. I thanked him and told him I'd probably use it for steaming, and that we should probably visit the Wok Shop instead to get the real deal.

So I did an experiment in the end. One tagine with direct heat from the stove on low. And one with the wok support and then the tawa on top, and finally the tagine. Slightly higher heat. I can confirm that the diffused heat method....... (drum roll) took longer to do the exact same thing. Taste wise they were both incredible!

Ah. Well, if it isn't too wobbly you can put the tawa atop the wok support. :-) Actually, given what you say about the respective sizes of the tawa and the tagine, I think the tawa would be sufficient. In my experience gas hobs seem to heat more evenly than electric coils, and the tawa should provide enough heat conduction to even it the rest of the way. You still need to be careful to change temperatures gradually, so that thermal shock doesn't crack your tagine.

I'm using gas. The wok support is too big for the tagine pot to just sit directly on it.

I think that the wok support would be better than the tawa, because it will allow the heat to diffuse itself more evenly. If there really are hot spots on your burner I'm not sure the tawa would even them out; it looks rather thin to be an effective diffuser. Is your stove gas or electric?

I don't have anything cast iron. But it's a mini tagine pot for one person (I got two of them for free in a cooking class). It's about 10 inches across and the tawa is 12 inches. So no problem there. I'm using gas so it's a direct flame. I don't have a wok ring but I do have one of these wok supports that I can rest the tawa on (it's too big for the tagine pot itself). Would this be better? It's just further away from the heat: On a side note, if autocorrect changes 'tagine' to 'tagging' one more time I'm going to start throwing clay pots at the computer

If you have a wok ring, that will also work. For what it's worth, I've used my clay tagine directly atop the stove - both the electric coil type and the smooth-top ceramic type - with no ill effects. I am very careful to change heat slowly, though: low heat at first, then higher - and just as careful not to shock the tagine later by adding cold liquids.

Hi Kay...My kitchen and it's menu? ...that's a long story! Talento restaurant is 15 years old and it started as a 60 seat THAI restaurant. I spent six months in Thailand and when I came back I opened the restaurant with my partners, the restaurant did very well and we moved to a bigger place... in this new location we started getting more families as customers, not only people looking for fine dining, so, I got a charcoal grill (Argentinian style) and I added to the menu beef cuts and burgers... and it was a success for a while, then we moved to an even bigger location and now I cook traditional Mexican too... but the problem is that a lot of people still craves many menu items from the very opening, so now I just call the place "an international cuisine restaurant" because: how can you call a place where there are phad thais, wok sauted food, Argentinian beef cuts, burgers...and Mexican food in the menu? Thanks a lot for the question Kay and best regards from México! Luis