Cooking with a wok

Cooking in a wok is different from cooking in flat-bottomed pan. You can stir fry using a flat pan, but it's not the same and doesn't impart the same flavor. Wok cooking requires high heat and a well-seasoned wok uses less oil than a flat pan. I don't toss my food in my wok as that will invariably cause food to shower down on my whole kitchen. In fact, I don't know anyone who actually tosses food in a wok. I, like my mom and many other moms, shovel the food around in the wok to keep it moving.

Here is a tip about making several dishes in a wok. Always start with the cleanest dish and end with the dirtiest and sauciest. Meaning, if you're having for dinner Ants Climb on Tree, Scrambled Eggs with Tomato, Plain Stir Fried Bok Choy (meaning just bok choy and salt), you should start with the bok choy dish, then the eggs, and then the Ants Climb on Tree. Another example would be if you're serving Stir Fried Corn with Pine Nuts, Tofu and Mushrooms with Brown Sauce, and Breaded Seitan Chops, start with the corn dish, then the seitan dish and then the tofu with mushrooms dish. The idea is to keep the flavor of the previous dish from contaminating the flavor of the next dish without rinsing the wok in between. Ideally, you never turn off the heat and just toss ingredients in, cook, plate it and toss in the next set of ingredients. I usually cook at medium high to high heat and I keep the food moving with my shovel (aka wok spatula). This prevents the veggies from soaking up too much oil, which allows you to use less oil to cook.

Another tip is that sometimes, you can cook more than one item at a time. The wok is pretty big and sometimes, you need to cook or saute different elements of a dish before putting it together. For example, let's say you want to make fried rice. You can dump the leftover rice into the wok, smoosh it to the side and then pour in the beaten eggs in the space to make scrambled eggs. When the eggs are just about right, just mix it all together and add in the other, already cooked leftovers. Serve when everything is cooked through.

Well that's all I got for now! Happy cooking!