Super hot wok issues

[Hassouni]

So the other day I bought one of those Thai grills/charcoal wok stoves, for getting serious damn heat outdoors when stir frying. Loaded it up with hot charcoal tonight and sure enough it got HOT. So hot that when I added my marinaded chicken cubes, a portion of chicken literally exploded out of the wok and headed straight for me, burning my arm in the process. What didn't hit my arm travelled a good 5 feet or so.

 

I guess maybe the chicken was too wet? Is one not supposed to marinade meat when dealing with such high temperatures? I imagine it still wasn't as hot as a commercial wok range, but then also I'm using a 14" wok, as opposed to a much larger one typical for such a high-heat application.

 

Basically, I got this grill in part to get searing heat and super wok hei, which I achieved...so how do I prevent further injury?

[ChefPip]

Just a word about cooking with a Wok.   The principle is to be able to use just enough heating fuel to quickly cook the meal.  That was why the Wok was invented.  There wasn't much fuel and it was expensive so the cook had everything laid ot in advance in order of the time it took to cook.  Once the Wok was heated,  peanut oil would be swirled around the side and possibly some sesame oil to help flavor it.   Then in would go the items like Green Peppers, Onions, carrots, meat and later celery, bok choy, bean sprouts, show peas and whateve only needed to get hot with the few minutes of heating fuel you had.  

 

The Wok is a very efficient utensil.  It doesn't require much fuel.  If you were using a 12 inch Wok,  I'd say 10 to 15 glowing red

briquettes would more than be enough to prepare your meal.  You may even get by with eight briquettes.

 

I learned to cook in a Wok years ago.  Today I own about four of them.   It started in school days when my Grandmother bought one somewhere and thought she would learn to cook Chinese.  She was clueless and successless as well.  Next tme I was by there she had it filled with dirt on the patio and flowers growing in it.  So at the end of the season I asked her for it and cleaned it up and learned to use it.   It is a whole different way to go about cooking let me assure you.

[Hassouni]

I've been using a wok for all my adult life and am pretty good at it, I'm just not used to it at such intense levels of heat.

[liuzhou]

 

Once the Wok was heated, peanut oil would be swirled around the side and possibly some sesame oil to help flavor it.  

 

It would be pointless adding sesame oil at that stage. The flavor of sesame oil rapidly dissipates with heat. Especially at the temperatures Hassouni is talking about. That is why Chinese cooks add sesame oil at the end of the cooking process, immediately before serving.

 

And it isn't always peanut oil that is used.

Edited August 28, 2014 by liuzhou (log)

[weinoo]

So the other day I bought one of those Thai grills/charcoal wok stoves, for getting serious damn heat outdoors when stir frying. Loaded it up with hot charcoal tonight and sure enough it got HOT. So hot that when I added my marinaded chicken cubes, a portion of chicken literally exploded out of the wok and headed straight for me, burning my arm in the process. What didn't hit my arm travelled a good 5 feet or so.

 

I guess maybe the chicken was too wet? Is one not supposed to marinade meat when dealing with such high temperatures? I imagine it still wasn't as hot as a commercial wok range, but then also I'm using a 14" wok, as opposed to a much larger one typical for such a high-heat application.

 

Basically, I got this grill in part to get searing heat and super wok hei, which I achieved...so how do I prevent further injury?

 

How drunk were you?

[Hassouni]

Stone cold sober

[dcarch]

Was there baking soda in your marinade? 

 

Extreme heat, lots of water, and baking soda can generate steam and CO2 powerful enough to propel the chicken parts flying some distance.

 

 

dcarch

[KennethT]

I'd imagine it was just too wet. When a lot of liquid (trapped underneath the chicken) is rapidly heated, the steam produced can be very powerful. Next time, I'd try draining the marinade really well, then maybe a light coating of starch (rice flour, wondra, etc.) to absorb the excess liquid.

I've watched a lot of cooking over those ridiculously hot woks in Thailand - the kind where there's a fan underneath the charcoal pot, and it looks like a flame thrower is underneath the wok. Most things that go in there seem pretty dry - I can't remember anything dripping wet, until the sauce goes in, but by that time, the wok is cooled by all the other ingredients already in it.

[Hassouni]

Was there baking soda in your marinade? 

 

Extreme heat, lots of water, and baking soda can generate steam and CO2 powerful enough to propel the chicken parts flying some distance.

 

 

dcarch

 

Nope

 

I'd imagine it was just too wet. When a lot of liquid (trapped underneath the chicken) is rapidly heated, the steam produced can be very powerful. Next time, I'd try draining the marinade really well, then maybe a light coating of starch (rice flour, wondra, etc.) to absorb the excess liquid.

I've watched a lot of cooking over those ridiculously hot woks in Thailand - the kind where there's a fan underneath the charcoal pot, and it looks like a flame thrower is underneath the wok. Most things that go in there seem pretty dry - I can't remember anything dripping wet, until the sauce goes in, but by that time, the wok is cooled by all the other ingredients already in it.

 

So my marinade was soy sauce, chinkiang vinegar, and potato starch, with a bit of cooking oil, all mixed up at once, as I've always done and always see recipes for. I suppose I could consciously drain it next time. As for coating in starch, do you mean before it hits the wok, or as part of the marinade as I did?

[KennethT]

I know it's typical to include the starch in the marinade, but I would try doing it differently - marinate wihtout the starch, drain, then a dusting of starch just before it hits the wok...

[Hassouni]

Hm, might that not lead to issues with sticking?

[ChefPip]

liuzhou

 

Thank you for pointing that out about using the sesame at the end.  I've been following what I learned from a book, "The Wok and the Way" and that was what was suggested.   I'm glad you brought this up. 

 

By annology, here in Appalachia when we make Apple Butter we only add the Oil of Cinnamon right at the end of the process

before canning it in glass jars.  Otherwise it will evaborate out of the Apple Butter and be wasted.

[takadi]

Sounds like you had a hell of a time!  I absolutely love super hot wok cooking, better than fireworks. And when you manage to successfully stir-fry your food at super high heat without burning your foods (and yourself) the flavor is incomparable. Your pan was probably so hot that there was probably some trapped air or water beneath the starch marinade and the rapid expansion due to heat caused the explosion.  Did the oil light on fire too? 

 

For super hot wok cooking like this, I would recommend parboiling or precooking everything before hand so that the ingredients all cook at the same time.  Everything goes so fast that you will end up burning everything if you just add raw ingredients and expect them to cook through.  . As as you experienced, adding the raw meat with marinade can result in some hazards.  The point of the wok that is this hot is to provide rapid caramelization and intensify release of aromas, not necessarily to cook all the way through.  For meats that are marinaded in starches I like "velveting" them beforehand to precook them and to make sure the starches in the marinade don't stick and burn to the pan.  Shallow frying some ingredients at lower temps beforehand can help with the "drying" process so the outside isn't too wet when it touches the hot wok.

Edited August 28, 2014 by takadi (log)

[Lisa Shock]

Maybe cutting the chicken a bit smaller would help. Trapped steam is what is likely propelling the pieces, so you need to try and reduce the liquid as well as reducing the size of areas it can build up inside of or under each cube.

 

I had something similar once when I was making tempura. I battered some brussels sprouts whole because they were small. I tossed about 6 of them into the oil all at once and they shot out in all directions within a minute or so. They traveled a long ways, too. Now, I always halve or quarter my brussles sprouts and things are fine because the steam doesn't build up under the dome.

 

Anyway, I am thinking that today's chicken is different from those in the past (higher fat content, lower protein) and, somehow you cut pieces that were trapping steam inside or under them.

[Hassouni]

By the way I should add that the chicken exploded out the very instant i dropped it in the wok

[KennethT]

I think the brussels sprout issue is a little different - the battered whole sprout has air trapped between the interleaved leaves with no easy exit. As it gets hotter, the air between the leaves, as well as water that is turning to steam expands beneath the tempura crust and is trapped, until at some point, a weak spot in the batter breaks and all the trapped gases rapidly leave, propelling the sprout across the kitchen. Cutting the sprouts in halves or quarters not only reduces surface area, but also makes it easy for gases between the leaves to exit without building pressure.

Chicken doesn't have air spaces or trapped water that easily turns to steam (the inside of the chicken meat probably never gets higher than 180F at the most), so it's only the surface water you have to worry about. Which makes sense that the chicken exploded the instant it hit the wok. The surface liquid instantly flashed to steam and rapidly expanded!

Modernist Cuisine gives a whole explanation of wok cooking, and illustrates the several cooking zones present in the very hot wok. Yes, there's the conduction of the extremely hot metal, but also, just above it, is the steam zone where you have extremely hot steam present.

[Hassouni]

Well either way, it left a bunch of nasty scars on my arm (that hopefully will heal and disappear), so I'd be grateful for any more advice on how to minimize future explosions! So far, making sure the meat is quite dry sounds like my best bet. Maybe also wearing long sleeves?

Edited August 30, 2014 by Hassouni (log)

[Lisa Shock]

Yeah, that's why chef coats have long sleeves and high collars.

 

Burns can take a long time to heal, be patient. I burned most of one forearm a few years ago, by pushing it hard onto a 450° pan that was on the clean pan storage rack at work. It was an oozing sore for six weeks, then an ugly scar, and now you can't see it at all. I used neosporin when it was an open sore, then put cocoa butter on the scar. Anyway, learned to not roll up my sleeves unless I'm alone in the kitchen.

[huiray]

If you watch videos of Chinese chefs cooking stuff (professional chefs - e.g. in HK restaurants/hotels & elsewhere) one will often see them adding "wetter" ingredients (e.g. chicken, prawns, etc) to the wok with one hand while holding that large long-handled "sieve" (that is part of the set of implements needed for such wokkery) over the wok and above the prawns/whatever being added in, especially when deep-frying the stuff. (one example: at 2:37 in this video)

Edited September 1, 2014 by huiray (log)