I've been wanting that "restaurant quality" taste to my Chinese food which is called "wok hei". This literally translates to "the breath of the wok" and gives you the unique flavor that you can't get by cooking Chinese food over a conventional stove. You need a LOT of heat to get that flavor as the oil on the wok smokes up while you cook your food. Use either Peanut Oil or Vegetable oil when cooking on a wok... these have a higher smoke point than other oils.
The huge 22" carbon steel wok was seasoned for almost an hour. I followed the technique that I saw on this YouTube video and it helped burn off the plastic-like coating that the wok comes with. The coating is used to keep the wok from rusting before you receive it. It really smelled bad while it was burning off, but there's no way you can cook with it on!! Not safe! But like the video, I did not scrub off the coating opting to burn it all off instead. I then washed the wok and heated in some oil.
I had the flame a little too high and the oil in the wok caught on fire during the seasoning process! Be careful not to do that because it leaves a black mess in the wok that can't be removed. I worried a little about this at first but then accepted it because after lots of use, the bottom of the wok is going to look that same way anyway!
After spending nearly an hour to season the wok, I gave it a try by cooking rice noodles in it. Wow! Was it fast! I cooked these in less than 4 minutes. Next, I cooked up some chicken and bok choi. Not as good as I hoped because I didn't season it well. I'll do better next time.
After having our Chinese dinner, my family decided we should try some french fries to see how well it can fry! So in about 3 minutes, frozen fries were cooked golden brown. That's fast! We also fried up some breaded zucchini's (I almost burned these... the oil was getting too hot!) and also some breaded green beans! The beans were great at about 3 minutes as well.
This burner puts out 65,000 BTU's and the wok heats up super fast! If you want quick food, this is it.
After dinner, I made sure the wok had a decent layer of oil on it before putting it away in the basement. I'm bringing the wok and burner in the house after each use and storing it in our basement as I don't want the equipment to rust too quickly due to rain and dew, etc.
Well worthwhile if you want that restaurant quality taste (wok hei) to your Chinese food!
Tomorrow I am planning on cooking some fried rice in the wok and also will do some pan fried noodles with vegetables and char siu pork.
Follow-up: Here's the fried rice from lunch the next day! I find that the 22" wok is actually a good size! At first, I thought it was too large, but after cooking fried rice, I don't think it is. You move around a lot when stir frying and with a 22" wok, nothing goes flying out of the wok because it is so large!
