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I'm having trouble deciding whether I want/need a fry pan with high sides, like a wok or similar, or maybe a larger saucier, or both. Currently I have 12" and 8" SS shallow saute pans, a 10" lodge CI, a 12" round CI griddle, a shallow/wide 8qt SS dutch oven, and a 2qt saucier. 20yr GE gas range, with possible upgrade to induction in a few years if the range stops working (probably won't, it's been easy to make repairs so far). Past 18 months my diet has transitioned to super quick, easy meals with heavy plant and fish/seafood. I rarely sear anything anymore. Some soups when I have left overs. My saute pans and the CI lodge have worked okay for sautes, but they tend to be messy with contents falling over the edges, annoying. The DO is shallow enough to reach my utensils in to stir things around, but it has been really awkward to toss the pan, maybe the shape being so wide or it being bottom heavy. I prefer to keep my tools minimal and multi-purpose. The 2qt saucier is too small to make myself 1-2 portion soups in the winter, and the DO is so wide such that solids stick out of the liquid. So.. it seems a 3qt or 4qt saucier would be the right choice? I have looked into woks, too. Costco at the moment has an induction hob + cheapo carbon steel wok for $100; Sur La Table has a typical carbon steel wok for $35 on sale now; River Light has a nice nitride-gassed carbon steel wok for about $80-90. There are other wok options I found but I dunno. The local "asian stores" near me only stock non-stick coated woks (wtf?!) which I can't use due to my pets, and I've found the super premium snooty fancy fancy oxenforge stuff but yeah.. no. I've tried woks twice over the last 15 years, and totally disappointed each time: once was a "pow" shape carbon steel that would either rust or get super sticky if I didn't use it enough, and second was some cast iron thing that I couldn't get any seasoning on it. That's why the nitride gased CS wok looks interesting. But then the Costco induction hob would be a new toy, much fun, and I waffle to saving money on the SLT, but both that and the costco are standard carbon steel which I've had no luck with in the past. Any thoughts? Blah.

I read your first post and I may be slightly off in terms of the food you are cooking. If you really have no interest in searing food, I think you might be better off with an evasee than a wok. If you want to go for a wok, having had a couple, I find cheap, thin ish carbon steel ones, well seasoned work better than fancier ones.

I have 1, 2 and 3 qt sauciers as my workhorse saucepans. I cook mostly for myself or a few others. It’s possible a 3 qt saucier may help you out with soups, etc. It’s one of my most used pans, along with a 4 qt saucepan. I also have a 12-inch carbon steel wok, which is smaller than most recommend for a wok but I find it the perfect size for me. I see a lot of 4 and 5 qt “everything” pans on the market but they tend to be a lot heavier than my wok when it comes to tossing things about and don’t offer the benefit of starting in a small pool of oil. I do have 6 and 8 qt saucepans I use for larger volumes of soups, etc. I

Another quick, before kid activities dinner, somewhat sloppily plated. Seared Yellowfin tuna with a sesame crust over noodles with stir fry of Chinese water spinach (new green I had wanted to try for a while and bundles were on sale at the Asian market) and a picture of my wok. Cause I like my wok.

@KennethT what you are using is a round bottomed ' pan ' you can call it a wok , or a saucier . each has very different connotations . but , once you go Round , all the rest are Flat.

Chicken and Green Bean Stir-Fry - in the wok with chicken breast, green beans, scallions, fresno chili, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice and finished with some arugula microgreens. Served over rice and topped with a fried egg

For the past few years, I've been watching a lot of Indonesian/Malaysian YouTube videos of people making various dishes. Most of these dishes are some form of braise, starting with frying a spice paste in oil over relatively low heat, then adding a liquid to the braise. Every single video has them cooking in some kind of wok - and like you say, most of those woks are lined with a non-stick material. For that type of cooking, I don't think the non-stick is much of an issue because it doesn't use high heat that can damage the coating. I used to do my braising in a standard 8qt sauce pan (looks like a mini stock pot), but lately, I've moved to a small, cheap stainless steel wok I got off Amazon and found that it works much better. Even making a small quantity, I don't need a lot of liquid to cover, and it's easier to stir things around, especially when there's large chunks in there. And it's vastly superior to the standard sauce pan when you need to reduce the liquid.

This may be too late to be useful but I have been evaluating an 11 inch frying pan from WANGYUANJI, the same company whose wok I suggested earlier. (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Earlier today I used the WANGYUANJI to make an omelet. Results were as good as with the non-stick pan I usually use for omelets. I recently evaluated a more expensive Made In carbon steel frying pan but did not care for it as much. Both pans were used on induction. Alas, my Darto pans all rusted. Lastly, the WANGYUANJI pans and woks come in gift boxes. A nice touch (that may indicate the pans are overpriced).

I have the carbon steel, flat bottom wok with the metal side handle from wokshop.com. I got the 12” size which is good for me as I’m usually coking for 1 or 2. The 14 inch would be more versatile for some things, for example, I’ve made a few recipes where some ingredients were to be moved up to the side while something else got cooked in the bottom and the bigger wok offers more real estate for that sort of stuff. I already had both flat and domed lids that work so I didn’t need to buy them. Edited to add that I’m very happy with that wok.

Curious if anyone out there has had any experience with induction wok burners, for restaurant or home use. Up until recently the only ones available have been pricy restaurant models or equally pricy built-in models. However, I've noticed a few much cheaper options coming to market. For home use, there's this Nuwave countertop model — $169, but it looks like it has sold for $99 at some points in the past. 120v, 1500w I'm also seeing a number of much less expensive countertop restaurant models: Galaxy GIWC18: 120v 1800w, $229 Avantco IWC35: 240v 3500w, $359 Sunpentown SR-34BWC: 240v 3400w, $612 Wondering if anyone has any experience or thoughts on any of these new models. I was thinking of adding a 240v outlet when we renovate our kitchen, but one of the 120v options might be a nice stopgap. I can't find any reviews on the restaurant models. The Amazon reviews for the NuWave are mixed, but a lot of the negative reviews seem to be from people who don't have a clue how to season and use a carbon steel wok. There's also a wok cooking teacher in Florida who seems to like the NuWave as an alternative to an Iwatani butane stove.

So far, all I've decided on is the book and the flat bottomed wok that @blue_dolphin suggested (I got the 14" one). That Staub that @weinoo suggested looks pretty nice, and is the same price as the AC MOAP and I agree the size is more appropriate for the quantities he's been cooking. I ordered the wok already but now I'm wondering if I should see if he has a preference for the Staub or the MOAP. Maybe it's better to get the Staub now and save the MOAP for next year ....

The kid is thrilled with the book, he can't wait for the wok to arrive (any day now) and the Staub is scheduled to arrive May 6. He's excited! Thank you for the recommendations.

The temperature hit 38℃ today, so I cooked as quickly as possible then served it cold. Stir fried freshly peeled shrimp (by which I mean they were alive ten minutes before they hit the wok. Stir fried octopus Served those to myself with a Mission brand Naan. God it was awful. Only took one bite. Sweet and cloying.

Burmese inspired dinner with Burmese Chicken from Milk Street and Okra-Shallot Stir-Fry from “Burma” by Naomi Duguid - the diced chicken thighs are cooked in a spice paste made from tomatoes, turmeric, red pepper flakes, lemon grass, shallots, ginger and garlic. Finished with some lime juice and cilantro. The okra and shallots are simply stir-fried in the wok with some turmeric, ginger, jalapeno and fish sauce. Served over rice

An omelette. By request of Mrs Dr Teeth. Fromage blanc with ramps from the farmer’s market (think Boursin, only a fair bit better and a good deal more pricey) with asparagus from the CSA. Sliced the asparagus as per Chinese asparagus stir fry, then tossed in the wok with butter.

盐焗鸡 (yán jú jī), salt baked chicken. A Hakka dish. The chicken is brushed with Shaoxing wine, covered inside and out in a mix of ground 沙姜 (shā jiāng), sand ginger aka lesser galangal, kencur, Kaempferia galanga; salt and ground white pepper then buried in its own weight of coarse sea salt and ‘baked’ in a clay pot or wok. Usually served hand torn. Here I used half an organic chicken and I’ll get at least two meals out of it. The salt is reusable.

This is a very good idea; I can get him a cast iron skillet at Restaurant Depot (they have a number of sizes/shapes) and I can order the book; what kind of wok would you suggest? I'm looking at wokshop.com per Kenji's recommendation....

Yes. I buy them live. They were still kicking until minutes before they hit the wok.

Seared scallops with mushrooms and mashed sweet potato: Mash boiled sweet potatoes with butter and heavy cream. Sear mushrooms in ghee with a sprig of rosemary and remove. Sear scallops in butter with rosemary and remove. Deglaze the wok with Shaoxing wine, add heavy cream, and reduce. Season with S&P. This was the "last meal" for our house guest. She had the choice of this or keema. I think she chose well (even though I love keema).

Thai shrimp salad. Stir-fried shrimp in the wok. Dressing was blended long red and bird chiles, garlic, lime juice, and fish sauce. Salad had cucumber, shallots, scallions, Asian basil, mint, and cilantro. Served with microwave cilantro rice (not pictured). Spicy!

Leftovers from last night's dinner: Bulgogi and Mexican green rice with sorrel and epazote. A friend contributed a Greek salad, to complete the multinational meal. Russian neighbors gave Mrs. C some sorrel plants, and she has been growing them in a pot. Neighbors use sorrel in their green borscht, but we both enjoyed the nice sour tang that sorrel gave to green rice. Will make again. I made the bulgogi in the wok with shabu-shabu steak. I would not do that again, flavor was good but the cut was just too thin.

That particular All-Clad pan is big and heavy so it’s challenging to toss or flip stuff around. If the kid is beefy and regularly cooks for a crowd, it might be a good pan for him. IMHO, the mother of all pans would be either a wok or a cast iron skillet. Both are inexpensive and would teach the kid about how to season a pan and how to cook in a way that respects that seasoning. You could get him both of those and a copy of Kenji's The Wok for a lot less than that pan. I've ordered quite a few items from that factory sale website and haven’t been disappointed. It’s great if you happen to spot something you’d like but not so much when you have something specific in mind. My only miss was a pan that turned out to be both bigger and heavier than I needed. Nothing wrong, just a bad choice on my part.

Yes, sorry I didn't mention that. I correctly seasoned it, and tried multiple times over the years. I have always seemed to have trouble with carbon steel. Even the vollrath fry pans I had which I gave away several years ago after giving up. They would be okay as long as I used them almost daily.. if I didn't use them for a couple weeks, they would begin to rust or get very sticky. Again, no issues with cast iron. FWIW, I can make eggs scrambled and fried eggs on my stainless pans without sticking, too, so I like to think I have achieved some level of home-cook-wizardy - still working on french omelettes, maybe some day I'll get that down. Hopefully this post will not go down the "here's how you season a pan" or "how to keep from rusting" or "too much oil" etc.. I'm more interested in deciding what pan, if any, to get next, and shared the background to demonstrate the basis of hesitation for going down a path I've tried before. Fun side note, about 15 years ago, a family member and I welded/built a solid-steel outdoor wok station/rolling cabinet out of metal and wood to hold an outdoor high-BTU wok burner. That was fun, many grease fires were had as we learned to control the flame. Now that's out of my system, I've repurposed the rolling cabinet for garden storage and my pizza oven

I wonder if you might want what often is referred to as a Chef's pan. In looking for links I've found that those are wildly variable in size and shape too, but in general they're something between a wok and a saucier. Here is the closest example I could find, but I'm not advocating this particular model: HA1 Nonstick Chef's Pan. My own workhorse is a 3-quart roundish pan, with a long handle and helper handle and a nonstick finish. (I don't worry about nonstick finish, despite pets; I don't heat it when it's empty.) I'd recommend the brand, but (a) it's several miles away and I don't remember the brand and (b) I got it for $3 at a garage sale. For what it's worth, here's a photo of it, turned over after washing. It gives an idea of the geometry.

Sorry, but no. I agree with @Tropicalsenior Also, I've seen so many things along these lines come and go, from cups that automatically stir your coffee to automated stir fry woks. They never succeed. There was even a trend here for automatic 'chefs' a couple of years back. None of the restaurants using them here lasted more than a few months. Amusing ideas but ultimately just gimmicky.