A Word on Recipes

Regarding recipes, Eleanor Hoh of Wok Star (http://eleanorhoh.com/) says that “A Wok Star is someone who develops their own cooking style and thinks outside the box”. She goes on to say “I approach wok cooking as a process illustrated in a simple-to-follow visual “stir-fry crib sheet”. Once you get this BIG PICTURE, you’ll find creating your own wok dishes is as easy as making a sandwich!”

The first time I ventured into her web site I instantly felt at home with her approach, as it is so similar to my own philosophy for “following” recipes. I find that rather than blindly following recipes, I prefer to make changes as I see fit and use the recipes more as a guide. Some of these modified “recipes” result in less than stunning results (or disasters), but more often than not, this mindset results in a better dish than I could have hoped for, or even a stepping stone to a more successful incarnation on a subsequent attempt. Using recipes as "guides" allows for much greater flexibility. If you don’t like ingredient x then simply substitute it with ingredient y. If you have a fresh ingredient in your fridge, then why not modify an existing recipe to accommodate that. You’ll have far more fun and you’ll probably enjoy your creation far more by customizing it to your unique taste.

As Eleanor Hoh says, “The beauty of stir-frying without recipes is that it allows you to make the best use of fresh, seasonal vegetables or foods that are on special sale. This also means you can use up whatever food are available in your fridge without them going to waste. “

While we’re talking about recipes, more often then not these will involve stir frying. So I may as well mention now (again, inspired by Eleanor Hoh) that there are 3 essential elements for a successful stir-fry:

• High Heat- if you can, use a gas flame. You will have better heat control. Your results will be better, and easier to achieve.
• Fresh Ingredients- modify your “recipes” to take advantage of fresh, seasonal, or available foods. Don’t settle for frozen or canned foods if you don’t have to just to meet requirements of some recipe. It will make for a more fresh and diverse menu and leave more room for experimentation with new ingredients.
• A good Wok- this doesn’t mean an expensive wok. It just means a good wok. Try for a carbon steel wok if you can. Its lighter than cast iron, but produces great results and is easy to work with, clean and care for. The size of the wok you choose should depend upon how many mouths you usually feed. If you are alone, a smaller wok will do. If you’re feeding a family of 4, you’ll need a larger wok (remember, you don’t want to overcrowd your wok…so when feeding more people, use a larger wok)

Dietary considerations

Health considerations:

Another reason that you may wish to make recipes “your own” may have to do with dietary restrictions. These may include restrictions based upon either health considerations, or religious ones. For example, I must restrict my salt intake. Products like soy sauce and oyster sauce must be very limited in my dishes. Even in the products that I do include, I look for those containing the least sodium. This sucks, as I do love soy sauce, but oh well.

Kosher considerations:

Don’t be put off from exploring a recipe because it may feature a food that you can’t eat for religious reasons. Pork fried rice can easily be reincarnated into chicken fried rice, beef fried rice, or vegetable fried rice for example. for that reason, I encourage you to look at recipes like that, that may at first glance seem taboo. They may inspire you to make your own variations of them through substitutions that make sense for you. I don’t eat pork but I’ve heard that ground turkey is a good substitute. So I fill my dumplings with a ground turkey mixture rather than with ground pork. So far that’s worked for me! But you get my meaning, look at recipes for the inspiration more than for the directions and you’ll do well.

Your local Asian Market

If you’ll be exploring the world of Chinese (or Asian cooking in general...) go and seek inspiration in authentic ingredients, or at least have a look at some of these ingredients before you jump into trying out your recipes. Visiting an Asian market is like going to a museum for me, in the sense that I’m always going to discover something new. The abundance of exotic goods is simply insane. More often than not, the goods you’ll find at these stores will come from a host of Asian countries, not exclusively China. So if you’ll be trying out some Thai, Japanese or Vietnamese dishes, for example, you will be covered here as well..

To illustrate just how much more expansive Asian markets are, the “Asian” section in most ordinary magalomarts (as Alton Brown likes to refer to them), usually consist of a single shelf dedicated to “Asian” goods. Those goods are usually limited to Americanized products like cans of La Choy chow mein or an assortment of Kikkoman sauces.

In contrast, your local Asian market may have an entire isle dedicated just to noodles! Another isle dedicated only to various sauces. And another isle dedicated exclusively to specialized cooking utensils. Half an isle populated with different kinds of Nori for your sushi making needs, and an entire isle dedicated to various teas.

 The produce section is normally quite extensive, as Asian cooking relies heavily upon fresh ingredients. Many of these products are familiar to you, while many others are exotic and unfamiliar, which certainly encourages a degree of experimentation. You’ll never know what you will discover until you try some of these more unfamiliar goods! 

 A good example of this is that prior to my having shopped at an Asian market I’d never so much as heard of a bitter melon. Now, bitter melons have become a staple in my cooking. I should also mention that you will find the prices to be quite a bit lower for most items, certainly for the produce, than you will find at your local magalomarts. And you will find the selection far more extensive as well. In addition to the produce boxes are water filled bins of fresh water chestnuts, of bamboo shoots, of bean sprouts and even of fresh made tofu. You simply scoop out how much you want and bag it. And best of all, its crazy cheap!

 You will find too an extensive sea food department with more types of fish and shellfish than you night find in an aquarium! Some of the sea creatures will be alive in tanks. Others will be fresh, lying on beds of ice. Head on shrimps as well as “cleaned” shrimp, as well as several varieties of other shell fish, squid or crabs. Additionally, there is usually quite a selection of frozen fish, and fish related items as well.

 

Exotic sights more common to the streets of Chinatown are present as well. Freshly roasted duck, and other birds, can be found hanging about as well.

I cannot suggest strongly enough to check out your local Asian market, or several of them if they exist in your area. If one hasn’t got what you’re looking for, then certainly another will. There are 3 such stores very near me. They are all great, but one has quickly become my favorite and I find myself visiting that one far more than the others. I’m sure you will find a great one near you too. So check them out, you won’t be sorry!

Cleaning and caring for your wok

Cleaning your wok is just about as easy as cooking in it. Simply run it under very hot water and scrub it with a bamboo wok brush. That should usually dislodge any food particles or liquids left over from the cooking process.

Wipe your wok dry with a paper towel, and then put it over a flame to be sure to finish drying it thoroughly. Once the wok is dry, turn off the flame.

Add a few drops of oil (the same oil you use to cook in your wok) and swirl it around with a folded paper towel (remember, that wok is HOT!) and smear it to cover the entire insides of the wok. This will keep the surface clean and prevent it from rusting, which it will do surprisingly quickly if you don’t care for it in this way.

Cookbook author Grace Young (http://www.graceyoung.com/) has this to say about the topic (from an interview in the New York Times at http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/getting-the-most-from-your-wok/):

"I soak the wok in hot water for at least five minutes. Then I wash the wok with hot water without dishwashing soap using the soft side of a sponge (I prefer the Scotch-Brite sponge). If there is any stubborn food debris, I use the rougher side of the sponge. Then I rinse the wok, set it on a burner over low heat for a minute or two, or until the pan is dry. Do not use a towel to dry a wok, because it doesn’t thoroughly dry the metal. There are purists who claim a wok should never be cleaned with liquid detergent. I never deliberately add dishwashing soap to the wok, but if my sponge happens to be a little soapy I have no problems using it."

"If your wok is new, I would avoid cooking initially with any strong acidic foods like vinegar or tomatoes, because the wok has a fragile patina and the acid will destroy it. Once the wok is well seasoned, you can certainly cook with acidic foods, but it’s best to remove the stir-fry to a platter the moment it’s cooked."

Woks sometimes develop a sticky surface when not used for a while Grace has this to say about that:
"Your wok needs what I call a “wok facial.” Heat the wok until a bead of water just vaporizes within one to two seconds of contact. Remove the wok from the heat and add about 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon of salt. Then take several paper towels and fold them into a thick pad. Use the pad to rub the oil and salt over the entire inside surface of the wok. Be careful that your hand does not touch the hot wok or the salt mixture. The salt crystals remove any stickiness, food debris or rust, and the oil moisturizes the metal. As you rub the towel you’ll see that the salt and towel will turn brown. Then brush all the salt out of the wok, rinse it in hot water and dry the pan over low heat for one to two minutes or until the pan is totally dry. One way to prevent the wok from getting sticky is to store the cooled wok in a large paper bag. If you live near the seashore or in a humid climate, the paper bag will also prevent the wok from rusting.

Wok cooking methods

Woks can be used for a wide variety of food cooking methods. Braising, steaming and frying are all possible in the wok. The two most important things to remember are to use the right high-quality oil or fat and to cook the food at the right temperature. Look for oils that are stable at high heats and that are more or less neutral in flavor. Chinese cooks normally use peanut oil, which has a high smoke point and a pleasant nutty flavor, for stir-frying (and deep-frying). Canola oil, which has a high smoke point and a neutral flavor, is also a good choice. So is pure olive oil (also simply called olive oil) but not the extra-virgin varieties. Other candidates include corn, soybean, coconut oil and grapeseed oil. What makes grapeseed oil so attractive is that it has similar health benefits to olive oil, but with a more “neutral” flavor (I personally like the flavor of olive oil, so I use that). Asian sesame oil is unsuitable as a stir-fry oil. Its strong flavor and lack of stability when heated makes it a poor choice. It is used primarily as a seasoning (be sure to use toasted sesame oil for this), added to the stir-fry at the end of cooking.

Stir Frying (Cooking & roasting)

"Stir-frying" is the name for the typical method of cooking in a wok. It is an Asian method of cooking where the ingredients are continually stirred or tossed in a very hot wok for a few minutes. It is essential to stir them quickly and on high heat. To ensure that you do this right and that you won't burn your meal, all ingredients must be prepared ahead of time, before you begin cooking. This is because the wok cooks very quickly using those high heat levels, so you need to be beside the wok at all times to supervise. You cannot spare time to go chop some more vegetables or grab the chicken out of the refrigerator. Put each of the ingredients into a small bowl of its own and have them all in easy reach.

A very important rule for cooking with a wok is this:

Hot wok, cold oil, food don’t stick.   Always remember this!

This means heat the wok up as hot as you can reasonably get it, before you add cold oil to cook with. Once the wok has become hot, the oil is added and it is heated up to the smoke point. A high temperature is important for stir-frying. You can use a simple water test to test that the wok has reached the optimum temperature. Sprinkle a few drops of water onto the bottom of the wok. If the water forms into droplets, the wok has reached the proper temperature and you can add the oil. Similarly, you know the wok is hot enough once the oil starts smoking (look for a wispy smoke). Once this point has been reached gradually add the ingredients, in the order of cooking times: those that take longest to cook to those that cook faster, and stir them quickly. This enables all ingredients to come into contact alternately with the hot base and the warm edges of the wok. It ensures that they are cooked evenly and quickly.

Quick Tip: don't add the seasonings until everything is mostly cooked, otherwise they will burn.

Some more stir frying tips:

 Prepare ingredients thoroughly, be sure that they are dry, and have them waiting within easy reach.

 Choose the right oil to cook with. It’s best to use oils with a high smoke point and low polyunsaturated fat content. Avoiding oils with high polyunsaturated fat contents, such as soybean or fish oil, will help keep your food and seasonings from becoming gooey.

 Heat the wok before adding oil. Before you add oil to the wok, you need to preheat it dry until it begins to smoke. This will open the pores of the metal and release the flavor stored in the wok before you add the oil. Once the oil is added, the pores will begin to close again.

 Employ high heat. The key to cooking with a wok is to expose the bottom of the pan to controlled, high heat levels. The heat must be high enough to flash-cook the food. Usually the burner needs at least 10,000 BTU to reach the appropriate temperature of around or above 400° F. As long as the heat is high enough, and the pan not overcrowded, you should be able to stir fry meat and vegetables very quickly to produce a crisp, fresh flavor that could only come from a wok.  



Check out this video of a professional Chinese chef stir frying. Notice how aggressive his technique is. This is because of the insanely hot flame he's got going on his professional wok stove. The more intense the heat, the more aggressive your technique must be to avoid burning your meal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGEHcGVYzmw


And to contrast, check out this video of Ching He Huang preparing a simple Chicken chow mein stir fry. Notice too that about half the video is devoted to her food preparation leading up to the actual stir frying. Also notice that when Ching starts the meat cooking in her wok, she lets it sit in the wok for about 20 -30 seconds to let it sear before starting to stir or move it. This is necessary due to the low heat capacity of the home cooking range. While the professional chef had a burner capable of outputting more than 100,000 BTU of heat, the home burner is good for 7000 to 10,000 btu. This is why home wok stir frying is a bit less frenetic than the professional technique. The lower btu s is also why its important not to over crowd your wok when you're cooking in it. Over crowding will reduce what is already a low btu heat that the home cook is already limited to and cause the food to steam rather than sear (or actually stir fry). Check out Ching's video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BxiR7gDDNU

Do not overcrowd the wok or you will lose those high temperatures.

 Try to cook on a gas burner. Gas burners use open flames to heat the pan, rather than an element. Elements retain heat, making it difficult to quickly increase or decrease the temperature level. With a gas burner, the flame can be adjusted and the effect is immediate, giving you better control over your high-power wok cooking so that food does not burn.

Braising

 Braising in the wok is also a fast process. Food that is not cooked properly if stir-fried alone, such as firm varieties of vegetables (potatoes, carrots and celery) can be braised. All ingredients are stir fried briefly before liquid is added. Then they are left to cook at a low heat. Depending on the type of vegetable, cooking can take a few minutes to half an hour. If no lid is used, the liquid will reduce and the meat, fish and vegetables will become tender and the seasoning more concentrated and stronger. Always remember to stir the ingredients occasionally so that they don't stick. Similarly to stir frying, it's best to season braised dishes shortly before serving. The evaporation of the liquid intensifies the flavors of the seasoning.

Steaming

 Woks are ideal for steaming many different kinds of foods, such as vegetables, fish, meat. etc. To do this, you will need a bamboo steamer that you can sit in the wok. These steamers consist of several “levels” so that you can steam several foods at once. Fill the bottom of the wok with water, cover with a lid and bring the water to the boil. Then, place your ingredients in the steamer and put it in the wok. This will cook the ingredients in the hot steam. Note: the wok should only be filled with water to just underneath the bamboo steamer! If necessary, add extra water during cooking. After only a few minutes, you will see that the ingredients will be crisp and fresh, and retain their vitamins and intensify in color. Steaming also cuts down on calories, because no oil is used for cooking. 

Grace Young's Tips for steaming in a wok:

  Always bring the water in the wok to a boil before putting food in the steamer.

Take care when adding and removing food—the steam will be very hot. I recommend using retriever tongs for safe and easy transfer.

If your carbon-steel wok is newly seasoned, steaming (or boiling or poaching) may remove the wok’s thin patina. Simply re-season your wok if this happens. 

 An ingenious technique for steaming, if you don't have a steamer, is to form an “11” or an “X” with a pair of (bamboo) chopsticks. They are placed above a shallow pool of boiling water in the bottom of a wok, and a heat-proof dish or plate holding the food rests on top. The dish will capture the juices and flavorings dripping from the steamed food. Seasonings may include soy or Thai fish sauce, slivers of ginger or minced chilies.

 

Deep frying

 You'll need high temperatures and plenty of oil to cook battered vegetables, egg rolls, fish, etc, in the wok. "Deep frying" in oil is just as popular in Asia as it is in Europe or the U.S. It's very easy to do with a wok: Simply heat a generous portion of oil to approximately 350 degrees and fry the food in it until it turns golden brown. Then, take the food out of the wok using a spider. Let the extra fat drain off on a cooling rack or on paper towels. The temperature of the oil can be measured using a special thermometer. If you don't have a thermometer, you can hold a chopstick, pointed down, in the hot oil. If small bubbles form around it, the temperature of the oil is around 350 degrees. Note the draining rack on the wok in the picture on the left. These are sold as add-ons that fit onto your wok for draining foods that you deep fry in it.



And once again from Grace Young, (from an article in Fine Cooking at http://www.finecooking.com/articles/four-ways-to-cook-in-your-wok.aspx), one that I'd never have even considered:

Smoking in a Wok

Smoking is probably the most exotic and ingenious technique for wok cooking. Unlike standard pans, a wok is deep and wide enough to accommodate an indoor smoking set-up, and its spacious interior provides ample room for the smoke to circulate around the food. The method is simple: Scatter tea leaves, sugar, and rice in the bottom of a foil-lined wok—the tea contributes aromatic smoke, the sugar caramelizes to lightly color and sweeten the food, and the rice acts as the fuel source, keeping everything smoking. Heat the wok until the mixture begins to smoke, and then cover it to trap the smoke inside and infuse the food with delicate smoky flavor.

Tips for smoking in a wok:

 Be sure to thoroughly clean the wok before setting it up for smoking so there are no stuck-on bits of food that could burn.

  Remember: If you smoke your food for too long, it can develop a bitter flavor.

Choosing a wok

The wok is one of the most well-designed, versatile and practical cooking utensils of all time. Though originally designed for pit cooking in China, it is easily adaptable to various types of stovetops. People the world over who have learned to master wok cooking, find it to be the ultimate multi-tasker in in that it can be used for all sorts of stovetop cooking, from sautéing and stir-frying to poaching, braising, steaming, deep-frying, and even smoking (as I've recently learned).

Woks come in many sizes and are made with many types of materials, from carbon steel that makes for easy seasoning (the best according to most sources that I've read), to stainless steel, aluminum, and other metallic alloys. They come either with two short handles, or with one long handle. They also come in differing depths, from shallow to deep. After serving for centuries with its round bottom, a more recent modification comes in the form of a flat bottom variety – more effective for our modern gas stoves according to author Grace Young.

Flat bottom or round bottom is one of the major choice issues with which you are faced. The answer will depend on your experience and style of cooking and on the characteristics that are most important to you. There are pros and cons for each, and therefore, varying preferences and opinions.

Grace Young (in an article in the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-we-can-eat/post/grace-young-the-code-of-chinese-cooks/2012/11/15/ef1e4ffc-2eb6-11e2-89d4-040c9330702a_blog.html) says that “nonstick pans are not suitable for stir-frying because food simply doesn’t sear or caramelize as well as when you use a carbon-steel wok”. “My favorite wok for stir-frying is a 14-inch carbon-steel flat-bottomed wok.”

“The 14-inch flat-bottomed carbon-steel wok with a long wood handle is the best pan for stir-frying on a residential stove. The wok sits directly on the burner (unlike a round-bottomed wok which requires a wok ring) ensuring that the pan attains the necessary heat. Carbon-steel, like cast-iron, is ancient nonstick cookware — ideal because it forms a natural nonstick surface the more you cook. The Wokshop.com in San Francisco’s Chinatown (http://wokshop.com/) has been in business for nearly 40 years, and has the most outstanding selection of woks.”

"Stay away from non-stick woks." On this topic Grace says “Stir-frying requires high heat, and only expensive high-quality nonstick cookware can safely be used on high heat. Nonstick cookware manufacturers recommend that the highest heat that can be used with inexpensive nonstick cookware is medium-high. I see no reason to spend a lot of money for a pan that produces mediocre stir-fries. I also dislike nonstick cookware because the pan cannot be preheated before adding the oil (the Chinese call this technique “hot wok cold oil”). For safety reasons when using nonstick cookware, the oil must be added to the cold pan before heating it.”


That having been said, I have chosen a round bottom carbon steel wok for myself. In my opinion, there's a reason why the wok has made it down through the ages with its round bottom and I am reluctant to change this feature. I guess I just like the traditional aspect of the round bottomed wok. Plus I believe that the heat source is more concentrated in the small round area rather than spread out over the larger area of a flat bottom wok. That’s not a scientific observation…but simply my own feeling on it.

One cool piece of hardware that I’ve found in my local Asian Supermarket is a stove top grate that is specifically shaped to accommodate a round bottom wok and keep it far closer to the heat source than a wok ring would be able to. (On this specific point, if you must use a wok ring, you can turn it upside down so that the wider area is up and the smaller area is down it will allow for your round bottom wok to sit closer to the flame). This grate allows the wok on the stove top in a stable fashion just like a regular pot would. Plus, the grate fits into the stove top just as the normal grates do.

As far as the handles go, that’s up to your personal preference. Most of the videos showing professional wok chefs that I’ve viewed on youtube show carbon steal round bottom woks with the two small handles on each side. The chefs use a towel to hold one of the rings with so as not to burn themselves while handling the wok. They do put on quite a show when cooking! I prefer a single handled wok as it seems easier for me to use. But who knows…that might change as I become more adept at using woks in general. In fact, check out a video on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGEHcGVYzmw. The cooking technique is certainly something that can be learned from. In fact, I learned to adopt the use of the ladle as opposed to the spatula from watching these videos and am far happier with its versatility.

Speaking of that, in addition to your wok, you should choose a spatula or a ladle that you are comfortable with (be sure that they are appropriately shaped to your wok – hint: visit your local Asian supermarket!) and get a decent Chinese cleaver as well, while you’re at it.

In short, the wok you would likely want from a practical outlook, is:

Between 14-gauge carbon steel and between 14- to 16-inches in diameter

Is flat-bottomed (best for our stoves) with a long wood handle

and has a metal domed or high-set lid with a heatproof handle (these are often sold separately).

Some sources include your local Asian markets, The Wok Shop in San Francisco (www.wokshop.com) or even www.amazon.com.