It is not mandatory to buy a pre-seasoned wok but, it is always preferred and referred. There are numerous benefits of buying a pre-seasoned wok, which you will lack if you go for an un-seasoned wok. The first thing you will have to face is season the wok before the first use.
Not seasoning your wok will interrupt the cooking process, and food may get stuck to the surface. Improper first seasoning may also affect your complete experience with the wok. The answer to this question is an absolute NO. Though cast iron is criticized for leaching iron into food, it is non-toxic, and the same goes for carbon steel. Both the material is being used for decades and centuries and have been an essential part of our kitchens.
On the other hand, a pre-seasoned wok can be a better option. Carbon steel and cast iron can get rusted when exposed to moisture for a longer period. The seasoning is performed by professionals using high-quality food-grade vegetable oils to make it safe for use.
When it comes to carbon steel or cast iron, carbon steel always stands out. The reason behind this is the better heat conduction property of carbon steel that makes it more prominent than cast iron or any other material. The pre-seasoned carbon steel serves best as safe and effective cookware. These have a more non-sticky surface, are easy to clean, and less prone to rusting and corrosion. A little care is enough for maintaining its durability as compared to other materials. Yosukata carbon steel wok pan is ideal for authentic Chinese cooking at home.
It has thick walls to ensure durability. This is a heavy-duty carbon steel wok made of high-grade black steel. The perfect healthy pre-seasoning with vegetable oil gives it a non-sticky surface which is ideal for stir-fries. This pow wok is from Mammafong who are famous for their hand-hammered woks.
The blue carbon steel wok is highly sought-after among home cooks and experienced chefs because of its traditional engineering. It is not chemically sprayed like other woks to ensure you healthy homemade food. It has natural oil sealed with intense heat.
This high depth inch wok pan has a wide surface and round bottom to lock all the flavors into food while cooking. The heavy-duty nonreactive blue carbon steel ensures the durability of the wok which also gives a genuine taste of the food. Lifting a big, hot wok full of steaming food puts a real strain on the cook, especially if the wok itself is heavy. Most of our woks had helper handles, but we usually needed our other hand to help transfer food into a serving dish.
You can leave the wok on the stove and scoop out the food, but that risks overcooking it, especially when the wok is made of cast iron and retains heat.
We found woks much more efficient and versatile when we could lift them with one, nondominant hand. In our lineup, woks ranged from just less than 3 pounds to more than a whopping 11 pounds, and testers had a strong preference for the easy maneuverability of the lighter woks.
On a related note, we also preferred carbon-steel woks. While we were ultimately able to make food successfully in all the woks—and enjoyed skipping the seasoning step when using preseasoned cast-iron woks—all the cast-iron models were thicker, heavier, and slower to heat up and retained heat longer than the carbon-steel models.
As a result, they were slightly less responsive and made it somewhat more difficult to control the rate of cooking than in woks made of thin carbon steel. This must be scrubbed off before seasoning can adhere. Heat the wok over medium heat. Discard the blackened food, rinse the wok under hot water, wipe it dry, and finish drying it thoroughly on the stove over medium-low heat. Now you're ready to cook. The pan may not look much different yet, but you've begun your seasoning process, and it will gradually change from blotchy brown to solid black in the months to come as you continue to use the wok.
One of the biggest differences we saw in the woks was the material, location, and shape of the handles. All the models but one had metal or wooden handles one had a plastic-coated metal handle , and we went into this testing assuming that metal, being more durable than wood, would be the way to go. We lost many valuable seconds reaching for a pot holder or towel to grab metal handles, which often surprised us by heating up halfway through a recipe. Models with a single, straight handle—like on a skillet—gave us the leverage and control we needed to lift and move the wok, and we preferred this design to woks with a pair of small looped handles.
When we tried to lift those woks using a single loop and a pot holder or towel , the opposite side of the wok sometimes suddenly swung down out of control. But woks with handles that were angled only slightly gave us better leverage and made the wok feel lighter and more balanced. Moving it felt more natural and comfortable.
We preferred wok handles that were angled up slightly, such as those of the Taylor and Ng model left. These handles gave testers better leverage and made the wok feel lighter and more balanced. You can move food around the wok to use these zones to the best advantage. They ranged from having no flat interior space in the heavy cast-iron wok to 7 inches; we preferred the model with the widest interior space. Many of our test kitchen recipes show that you can stir-fry in a inch nonstick pan with good results.
But using a wok can be much easier, especially when cooking large volumes of food, such as noodles or rice, that tend to spill over the sides of a skillet unless you stir very carefully or cook in multiple batches. Bottom line: We find it a very useful pan to have. Made of carbon steel, which is thin, light, and responsive to heating and cooling, so you get more cooking control. The easier it is to lift the better it is for you to toss food in as well as investing in good utensils.
How nice to grow up with that influence, and you make good points Bella. Thanks for your insights. I have wanted to try it for a while now, I just had no idea where to start. It seemed just a little overwhelming, I guess. But thank you for this!! The journey to wok hei begins with a single stir fry… glad you found some direction in the article. After reading this article, I have other options to present to him. Thank you for providing so many of the different examples for each situation.
You provided the options for many different models AND how to use them. Oh, the spouse that washes off the seasoning… I understand your pain kristin! Glad you enjoyed the post. We were lucky to grab a really nice steel example from Goodwill last year.
The difference between a wok and a regular pan may seem superficial, but I really do think it improves the quality of the food. Thank you for the historical information and product recommendations. We cook a lot of asian foods in our house but we do not have a wok.
I have never used one in fact. I am just wondering if cooking in a one as compared to a nice cast iron pan really makes much of a difference? This is the only thing truly holding me back from getting one. Any thoughts? I love cast iron, but for Asian dishes my carbon steel wok gets the top shelf. I have been using woks almost every day for most of the last 30 odd years. I have been toying with getting a stainless one for at least a decade, but would prefer something bigger than the usual offerings.
Does anybody here know of such a thing, that is reasonably priced and available in Australia? Hmm, you might need to make a trip to one of the Chinatown districts… any Aussies out there with a tip for udi? Well I happen to love a good stir fry, and having a good wok really makes a big difference when it comes to the ease of preparing and cooking the whole meal. Sturdiness and ease of cleaning are probably the two factors that I would say mean the most to me, and for that I think that I have found a good one.
I have a carbon steel wok, and it is a good weight and pretty easy to clean afterwards, even when using some of those sloppy sauces. Thanks for sharing this, and I might just have to whip up some stir fry here pretty soon. Carbon steel is a wonderful wok material rz.
Thanks to your informative article I will be able to get the best possible one for my kitchen. Seasoning sounds fun, cast iron seems heavy, and the stainless steel will never be nonstick without a ton of oil, in my experience.
Cast iron, on the other hand, may scratch the surface of your stovetop, and materials such as porcelain-coated enamel may actually melt and fuse with the surface of your cooktop. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Anderson As these nomads conquered and expanded their territory, the wok was introduced to many more cultures and its popularity grew in new realms — particularly in regions of harsh geography and uncertain political climates.
Construction Today, woks are available in a wide variety of materials, but the traditional model made of uncoated carbon steel is still the most popular choice.
I can imagine reaching for it multiple times a week. It must be stated that this is a true wok-lover's wok. If you're looking for essentially an oversized and rounded hassle-free nonstick pan a useful tool, and the reality of many Americanized woks on the market today!
But if you're willing to put in the work seasoning and caring for a more specific piece of kitchenware, the Joyce Chen wok delivers top-notch results every time, regardless of the cooking technique you use it for.
I found this wok to be the perfect vessel for stir-frying, with an ideal shape for food-flippage. And it was a great choice for steaming as well, thanks to the included domed steel lid with a stay-cool wooden knob.
Because of the high walls that protect both you and your stove from errant oil splatters, it makes as good a deep fryer as your trusty Dutch oven , and the wide mouth makes your food accessible from all angles for turning and extraction.
The manufacturer suggests boiling a few inches of water in the bottom of the wok, washing it with warm soapy water, rubbing it down with a bit of oil, heating it over medium for 10 minutes, and then wiping any excess oil in, cleaning off any dark streaks from the steel.
This was one of the more basic and straightforward seasoning processes of the woks I tested, and it also quickly yielded a nice protective seasoning layer that cooked and cleaned beautifully. Reviewers claim this wok develops a lovely patina over time and can last for years with proper maintenance; I'm looking forward to making it a regular part of my home cooking. If you don't want to go through a whole process of seasoning before you put your wok to use—a totally understandable desire!
Ideally you're looking for something right down the middle: a wok that can be used directly out of the box, but also still requires seasoning after each use, and therefore will develop a better cooking surface over time. The BK wok is 12 inches in diameter and made of thick black steel, with a flat and relatively wide base. It's the shallowest wok I tried, which initially concerned me, but my fears were quickly put to rest: there was plenty of room to flip food while stir-frying in the BK wok, and it steamed easily with the help of inch pan lid not included, but I grabbed one from my collection.
The shorter sides made making tempura feel more like cast-iron deep frying than Dutch oven deep frying , but I didn't mind; the oil heated quickly and transferred easily out of the pan when I was done using it thanks to the riveted steel handle and helper handle. Black steel works on gas or induction stoves and even over an open flame; it is stronger and more durable than carbon steel, and slightly heavier as well.
But despite looking like my favorite hefty skillet , it was light enough to handle with ease on the stove. I saw great browning on my stir-fry and had no difficulty cleaning the surface after use. Also, the post-cooking seasoning process was simple and quick to complete.
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