How To Use A Wok – Everything you can do with a wok The wok is one of the most versatile tools in the kitchen, and this list proves it.
Sho Spaeth has worked in publishing and media for 16 years. Before joining Serious Eats, he spent ten years at The New York Times. Shaw has written for Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Baffler Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler and other publications.
How To Use A Wok
We've recommended the wok many times over the years here at Serious Eats because the wok is one of the most versatile tools in the kitchen.
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Of all the pots and pans I own, the only thing that comes close to being used as often as my pot is the cast iron skillet, which is only used for baking and roasting large cuts meat. For most other tasks – roasting, of course, but also for quickly frying vegetables or browning cubed meat – I make my pot.
However, even those who own a wok rarely use it and often use it over the years to its full potential. To that end, we thought it would be helpful to present its various uses in one place, with visual examples of each. One of these uses—dry frying—is unique to Sichuan art, but the others—roasting, “roasting,” steaming, smoking, and roasting—are used in foods around the world. You will find that a wok performs better than some of the other cookware that you normally use for everyday tasks.
Plus, the convenience of using a wok for things like steaming and stir-frying may convince you to make some recipes more often. For example, you might be tempted to think of Southern Fried Chicken as an easy choice for a weeknight dinner (because it is!) after frying a few things in the pot and realizing that there's a splatter.
Before we talk about what you can do with a wok, we must think that we are talking about a
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Wok That is, sturdy construction, flat bottom for use on a normal stove top burner, made of carbon steel of sufficient thickness.
Our guide to buying and caring for a wok recommends Flat Bottom Wok by Joyce Chen. If you take proper care of it and season it well, it should last you a very long time and be able to handle any of the methods described below.
For those with an electric stove, don't despair. A flat wok will definitely work on an electric stove and is more versatile than any other pan in the kitchen for frying and more. better for
When most people think of what a wok can do, their first thought is stirring. This is understandable if the wok is larger than that. The slanted sides make it perfect for tossing and flipping food quickly and efficiently, and because it's made of carbon steel (which retains heat very well), the food you toss needs a lot of heat and you flip over and over again when it comes. . touch the pan and imbue it with a charred flavor without overcooking it.
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In addition, the vaporized oil that creates that high heat ignites when you throw it on an open fire, creating great pyrotechnics and, more importantly, the wok.
, the distinctive flavor that defines roasting. The result: extremely flavorful meat and delicate, lightly smoked vegetables.
Since roasting is a fast, high-heat cooking method, there are a few things to keep in mind when preparing any kind of roast. The first is that the pieces of food you're cooking need to be cut into uniform sizes, and you'll usually want to cut whatever you're roasting – whether it's cabbage, carrots or onions – into smaller pieces. (There are some exceptions, such as long beans and broad beans.)
Second, you'll want to insure your protein against overcooking, whether it's in the form of dried shrimp with baking soda or velvety protein.
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Finally, you may want to try frying in small batches, even if you are kung pao, to ensure that all elements of the fry are cooking properly on the lower heat of the home stove burner (compared with a wok burner). chicken or a great Chinese-Peruvian dish
For more instructions, you can read our guide on how to Fry in a wok and find the recipe for Lomo Saltado (Peruvian Roast Beef with Onions, Tomatoes and Potatoes) here.
I reach for steam, and now that I have a bamboo steamer, I don't need to buy a whole unit for it.
You can use a metal steamer or use the steamer insert that comes with another appliance, such as an Instant Pot; you can even turn one of those flat aluminum containers upside down and use it to hold food above the water if you want to poke it a few times with a skewer or the tip of a knife. Any boiling can be evaporated if you can lift it (safely) over a plate or basin of boiling water.
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But I want to make a bamboo steamer because it has more advantages. The first is that steamer trays are stacked, increasing the number of items that can be steamed at the same time. Secondly, it has its own lid, which is easier to clean than the big heavy lid that comes with our recommended wok.
No matter what you use to set up your steamer, it has so many applications. For my part, I steam many kilos of vegetables a week, especially for my child; I use a dumpling steamer as shown in the picture above; I use it for small steamed whole fish or fish fillets; I even use it for creams
Learn more about steaming or get the recipe for Simple Pork and Red Brown Dumplings here.
When talking about the wok cooking technique, “cooking” is a misnomer. Aside from the moist, low-heat cooking method of turning the collagen in tough meat into gelatin – what we commonly call “stirring” in Western cuisine – “wok cooking” essentially creates a cooked dish. While stir-fried foods may have enough sauce to cover every part of the food, wok-cooked foods have a very salty consistency. Think mapo tofu or the baked eggplant pictured above.
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If the idea of using a wok for recipes like this reminds you of the old saying “when you have a hammer in your hand…”, you should know that a wok is useful for a pot with a straight side like a dutch. oven. . rather than a stove (or even a less inclined vessel such as a plate), in particular, the contents of the vessel can be easily mixed without resorting to the vessel.
The wok allows you to stir and pulse the contents, and has a loop on the high, sloping sides. Try it with a dutch oven! Another advantage of the wok is that it is very easy to pour the bowl of salt directly from the wok into the serving dish.
Learn more about wok cooking or get the recipe for Fried Eggplant with Sichuan Pork in Sichuan Sauce here.
I think that occasional frying is more kitchen work than anything else, but I put it so low on the list because as well as wok-frying, I still stir-fry at home. much less than frying, steaming or roasting. The main reason for this has nothing to do with the wok and has to do with using and getting rid of a lot of oil, and I'm sure most home cooks will agree with me.
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When comparing frying in a wok to frying in a cast iron pot or Dutch oven, one may find that a wok is a much superior vessel. It is true that the slanted sides of the wok mean that more oil will be needed to achieve relative depth, but that is the only way the wok can be low.
Besides, those slanted sides make it easy to hold tools like chopsticks and colanders at different angles for frying food; facilitates drainage to filter or remove oil without spillage; and reduce the likelihood of oil boiling during frying.
But the best thing about using a wok for stir-frying is that it's less messy: The wok's flaming sides catch a lot of splashed oil that the straight sides of a Dutch oven or cast-iron skillet miss. The relative ease of wok frying makes foods like fried chicken (whether it's with kimchi sauce or deep fried, like the one pictured above) or a gonzo Popeye clone – much more appealing to cook.
For more information, read our guide to wok frying and
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