Wok

I just got a wok for the kitchen and have been dying for one for months! A flat-bottomed pan just isn't made for some of the dishes I like to cook! So I got one from The Wok Shop via Amazon.com. It's a carbon steel, round bottomed wok with a wooden handle that includes a whole bunch of stuff like a wok ring (essential for round-bottomed woks), a dome lid, wok spatula, ladle, brass skimmer, bamboo cleaning whisk (never used one of these before), a steaming plate and a fry rack. Check out the product with the link below:
http://www.amazon.com/Carbon-Steel-Wok-Set-included/dp/B0001CNK7M/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1251812774&sr=8-23

I chose carbon steel because I didn't want to eat teflon and cast iron was just too heavy for me. The wooden handle was important as I'd like to be able to move the wok around on the stove without burning myself. The lid is also essential for cooking and steaming vegetables. As I mentioned earlier, round-bottom woks need to sit on a wok ring that is placed over the burner. These were the things I wanted when I started my search for a wok. In truth I could have gotten a super cheap one from a restaurant supply shop, but this particular package had everything I wanted all together with a bunch of accessories. It was just too convenient to pass up!

So upon bringing everything home and washing them, my next task was to season the wok. Like cast iron, the carbon steel wok, once seasoned, will be non-stick. My mom has always used a flat-bottomed teflon wok because it's easier and convenient and she doesn't have any cast iron cookware, so seasoning stuff was not something I had extensive experience with. We do have a cast iron skillet at home that I faithfully season on a regular basis by baking some oil into it, but I didn't know anything about how to season a carbon steel wok. Thankfully, the wok set came with a booklet of recipes and well as a pamphlet outlining the different ways you can season your wok. For all the methods, the wok must be REALLY dry and to ensure that, you can heat the wok up on the burner for a few minutes. Anyways, for carbon steel, there are 3 ways you can season it.

The first method is the same method I normally use to season cast iron. You rub the wok inside and out with oil and place it upside down into an oven preheated to 300 degrees. Leave it in there for about an hour.

The second method requires using about 1 to 2 cups of salt. I did not have that much salt lying around so I didn't use this method. Basically, you toss the salt in and heat up the wok pretty hot and shovel the salt around until it burns into the wok all over.

The third method is the one I used. You heat the wok up really hot and pour in about a cup of oil. While moving the wok and using the spatula, swirl the oil around constantly until it burns itself into every part of inside of the wok.

A well-seasoned wok has that lovely blackened look. The great thing about cooking with a wok is that you really don't need as much oil as you would with a flat pan. When I first started cooking using my fiance's flat pan, he kept noticing that I never used enough oil, even though I was certain it was the same amount of oil to cook the same amount of food at my mom's place. Sure enough, he was right, but almost never having cooked without a wok, I didn't know why I needed more oil at his place than at my mom's. Lol!

Anyways, now that it's seasoned, I couldn't wait to test it out! So the other night, I stir fried some stuff and was so happy! Nothing stuck and it felt SO good to be using a wok again! Unfortunately, I underestimated how hot it could get and burned some stuff, but I chalk that up to having gotten used to cooking with my fiance's flat pans. I'll just have to get used to my new cookware. As far as woks go, I am very happy customer with this one!