Lisa McManus Answers Your Questions About Woks | Gear Heads

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38 Comments

  1. My Mom (84y) got confused and destroyed the seasoning on the bottom of her favorite cast iron Cornbread skillet with a metal scrubbing pad. I spent several evenings generously rubbing the bottom of the skillet with Crisco and leaving it to sit on an eye of her electric flat top until bedtime. This didn't put out as much heat as trying to do this in the oven. After each use, I wash with soap and warm water, towel dry and let sit to fully dry until I 'm done with the rest of the kitchen clean up. I then use a paper towel to thoroughly rub 2 to 3 drops of grapeseed oil into the skillet. The Cornbread now falls out easily, best seasoning the pan has ever had.

  2. what's your solution for seasoning a carbon steel wok on an induction cooktop. Flat bottom wok seasons the bottom but not the sides. Turning wok on its side only results in the Thermador induction stovetop burner shutting off as it does not detect the wok as a pan on its sides. Not enough contact i guess.Thanks

  12. For anyone having trouble finding our top-rated wok, our second place model is easy to get: The Wok Shop Carbon Steel Wok with Metal Side Handle, 14" flat-bottom. Here's a link: https://www.wokshop.com/newstore/product/carbon-steel-wok-with-metal-side-handle/ You can also get it with a wooden side handle. It's about $35. This wok weighed about 10 oz more than our winner but was otherwise fantastic and it's one that Grace Young uses, so you know it's good.

  17. I use a gas one but the catch is, take out your butane canister as soon as possible and put it on the shelf. Butane out of a canister slowly releases left in the portable stove, so to save your butane gas, unlock it right away and put it away plus, most portable gas burner stoves are not made for inside, so it's a safety feature, too, to put it away right away.

  24. I am pleasantly surprised that a well respected cook uses an electric burner. Most cooks have a real superiority complex in this debate. I like gas better because you can more easily regulate the temp however here where I live, they are eliminating gas from newly built homes so I guess people will need to learn to live with electric stove tops.

  26. Honestly I don't understand the wok vs skillet thing. While there is some overlap of course, there's things you can do in either that the other simply isn't made for.
    Skillets are of course fantastic for what you can imagine using them for. Pan sauces, stove to oven dishes, the usual. Woks simply won't serve that role.
    The issue I see with many at home cooks using woks and not getting the results they are looking for is that they have trouble using it for its intended purpose.
    For example the reason an at home cook can never seem to get that same family ran restaurant stir fry taste is pretty simple once you spot it. They overcrowd the wok (and msg). Woks really are designed for very high heat dishes that you have to move around constantly or things will burn. It's difficult to achieve those results if they are filled in a similar manner as a skillet. Hard to describe this in text but there are plenty of amazing examples online that show this difference in use.
    Another issue many at home cooks seem to struggle with is timing. Timing when cooking is of course important with almost every dish. But at such high heats things can take literally seconds to cook through. A large amount of dishes cooked in a wok requires the cook to constantly move things in and out. Unlike many of skillet dishes, it's highly impractical to cook a dish in a wok and have it sit in a pan the way you would do a roast or a large chicken breast or else they would burn.
    There's a lot I left out but the long and short of it is I feel it's impractical and (unintentionally) misleading to interchange a skillet and a wok. They are two very versatile yet very different kitchen work horses that I hope more American cooks can take the time to learn about.
    There's plenty of sources to learn from but what I found to be the most user friendly was a favorite youtube channel of mine named Chinese Cooking Demistifed. That's at least where my journey to learn more about chinese cooking started.

  28. Thanks for the great vid. 👍

    I have had a carbon steel-spun wok for decades. It has a flat, thick bottom… under 1/4 inches thick, for heat uniformity, stability/balance for cooking and heat retention, and is amazing.

    Our caucasion mom was raised in Japan, right after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the Mission field. Last month, she turned 82.

  32. I’ve tried finding the wok ATK recommended for four months with no luck. As to electric stoves, my mom had a fear of gas stoves so I used electric until my 50’s. Switched to gas and my only regret is that I didn’t switch many years ago.

  35. Folks should remember, woks have been around for hundreds of years. If they required such precious treatment, they would've been phased out of everyday use a long time ago. Instead, they're just as popular as they've always been, and even easier to care for.
    Thanks for the great info.

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