Wok.pdf

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Title: Introduction

Categories: Info, Wok

Yield: 1 info

No ingredients

The "cooking craze" for gourmet meals and exotic cooking at home has

finally arrived, states a feature article of TIME magazine of

december 19, 1977. The "cooking craze" rampage has caused homemakers

to purchase thousands of Chinese woks across the country. From the

sensuous pleasures that these people have derived from dining at top

quality Chinese restaurants across the nation, the zeal for Chinese

food has reached a popularity that surprises even the most seasoned

Chinese restauranteur. Few of these wok purchasers know much about

wook cookery, but most express a desire to learn how to cook well in

one. Hence, the reason for writing this booklet.

The author has spent some ten years teaching Chinese cooking both

formally in a university classroom and informally to various consumer

groups. This booklet was written in response to the numerous

questions that she has been asked within the last two years. The

basic instructions and recipes have all been used by her many

students.

One should have a desire to know something about China and its foods

before seriously embarking upon cooking stylistic dishes of its

cuisine. It lends greater fascination to know how some of these

dishes were developed and gives one a slight insight into Chinese

customs and culture.

The country of China, now known as The People's Republic of China, is

the largest country in the world by population, with 800,000,000

people. It is the third largest country in the world by geographical

area. Probably the best known feature of Chinese culture and

civilization is its cuisine. Chinese restaurants are found in almost

all large cities of the world.

Chinese cuisine has been at a high stage of sophistication for

countless centuries. This is evidenced by Confucius when he wrote in

his "Analects" during the sixth centure, B.C., that he liked his meat

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minced fine and his rice polished white. Regional cooking styles have

existed in China for at least a thousand years. Even foods described

in poetry by the Sung Dynasty poet, Su Tung Po (1037 to 1101 A.D.)

are not much different from the ones consumed today. There are extant

descriptions of court banquets at Hangchow of the Sung Period (907 to

1279 A.D.) that consisted of 40 to 200 courses and were served over a

period of one to three days. To serve all this food, the "elite" of

this period used gold, silver, jade and all types of porcelain

dishes. Some of these wares are presently on display at the Peking

Museum.

Since it is impractical in our society to strive toward ancient

Chinese court life, we can nevertheless strive to become sopisticated

gourmets. Some students are quite content to learn some Chinese

dishes and add variety to their diets. To become an accomplished wok

cook, it is not essential to use truly Chinese ingredients. Some

students do prefer Chinese ingredients, but the author has found that

most beginning wok cooks could not readily find the time to go to a

Chinese grocery store. Because of this inconvenience, this initial

booklet is designed to utilize ingredients that are readily available

in a large supermarket. Recipes utilizing true Chinese ingredients

can be found in another booklet, "Advanced Wok Cookery", by the same

author.

China has had a long legacy of high civilization, and it has long been

recognized that man must exist harmoniously with society and nature.

Even today, despite increased technology in agriculture and animal

husbandry, nature still creates its catastrophes; hence, the Chinese

reverence for good food, well prepared. If one has only one life to

live, then at least let it be pleasant as possible for one's duration

on the Earth.

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Title: The Wok

Categories: Info, Wok

Yield: 1 info

No ingredients

It is not known exactly when the Chinese first used woks. By examining

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extant funerary stoves and stone relief pictures of the Han Dynasty

(200 B.C. to 220 A.D.), the author conjectures that they definitely

have been used for at least two thousand years. Since the Chinese wok

is a concave shaped cooking pan without seams or corners, it war

probably invented to fit directly over the round hole of the Chinese

cooking stove. Wood was used to fuel the cooking stove. When the wok

was put over the cooking hole, the rounded bottom of it would become

the hottest part of it, while the upper sides remained somewhat

cooler. To take advantage of this heating condition, the Chinese

"chow" or stir fry pieces of food that have been cut up into bite

size quickly in the wok. The high heat at the bottom of the wok seals

in the individual flavours of each ingredients. With a quick stir of

the wrist, all of the flavours of the ingredients are blended

together to form harmonious or contrasting tastes and textures.

Deep frying and steaming may also be performed in the wok. The wok is

actually an all purpose cooking utensil for the Chinese. Except for a

very good Chinese cleaver and a pot for cooking rice, that is all

that a Chinese really needs to prepare his meals.

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Title: Selecting a Wok

Categories: Info, Wok

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Because there are many types of woks available for sale on the

market, the novice wok cook should make some distinction among them.

Some woks are sold individually while others are sold as sets with

lids, rings, etc. The materials that woks are made of are spun sheet

steel, hand hammered iron (low carbon steel), and stainless steel.

There are also teflon coated electric woks. For the beginner, the

author recommends that he purchase a wok set with lid, ring, wok

turner, ladle, and strainer. A wok made of low carbon steel is

preferred are this type of metal is a better conductor of heat. If

one is concerned with appearance, a stainless steel wok is

recommended. It can be scoured with steel wool and restored to

newness after each use. Because stainless steel is a relatively poor

conductor of heat and tends to reflect the heat back to the stove, it

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is recommended that a stainless wok be chosen with a slightly

flattened bottom, to provide greater contact with the heating element

of an electric stove.

Regardless of the type of wok that one selects, one should consider

the concaveness of a wok. There are shallow concave woks and deep

concave woks. The best wok shape is a medium concave wok. If a wok is

too deep then the heat of it will be mostly concentrated in the

bottom of it and not enough on the sides. If the wok is too shallow,

again, only the center of it will be heated and sides hardly at all.

For the same reasons of heat conductivity, a thicker gauge wok is

preferred to a thin metal wok.

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Title: Seasoning the Wok

Categories: Info, Wok

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Only iron and steel woks need to be seasoned. Stainless steel woks do

not need this treatment as they are far less porous than iron or

steel woks. However with stainless steel woks, more oil is required

to prevent the food from sticking.

Seasoning a steel wok enables foods to glide smoothly over the cooking

surface of the wok. In a properly seasoned wok one should be able to

make perfect omelettes. If the omelette even sticks ever so slightly,

then the wok is not properly seasoned and should be re-seasoned.

There are two methods for seasoning the iron or steel wok. After

purchasing the wok, wash it out thoroughly with detergent to remove

the surface grease which is applied to keep the wok from rusting

while in shipment. Instead of grease some woks are coated with

varnish coating and is difficult to remove. Bicarbonate of soda

should be boiled in the wok to rid the surface of this coating. When

the cooking surface of the wok is free of anti-rusting coatings,

apply a thin coat of polyunsaturated cooking oil to the surface of

the wok. Heat the wok up over a very high cooking flame for three or

four minutes until the oil begins to smoke. Reduce the heat and keep

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the wok over low flame for the next half hour. From time to time

brush some of the oil up around the sides of the wok to season it. At

the end of half an hour the wok is ready to use.

Another more thorough method of seasoning a wok is to brush

polyunsaturated cooking oil on the cooking surface of the wok and then

place the wok into an oven at 150'C. for four hours. The oil in the

wok will become pooled while heating in the oven, so about every hour

or so, take your brush and brush the oil up around the sides of the

wok and continue heating.

New woks may cause a slight metallic taste to the first two or three

dishes that are cooked in it, but after use, the metallic taste

disappears.

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Title: Caring for and Storing the Wok

Categories: Info, Wok

Yield: 1 info

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A properly seasoned wok should not be scoured with abrasive material

such as steel wool. After cooking foods in the wok, iti s best to run

very hot water into it and clean the surface of the wok with a bamboo

brush or plastic scour. Dry the wok thoroughly with a paper towel and

store for future use. Some gourmets will place a small amount of oil

on their fingertips to re-coat their woks to keep them in top cooking

condition. Eventually through repeated usage, a dark brown film will

develop in the wok. The wok is now truly seasoned. This film is

essentially carbon and is not harmful to one's health. The bottom of

the woks, the part that touches the cooking flame of the stove should

definitely be scoured over occasionally to free it of collected

residue.

If one has the misfortune to accidentally burn food in the wok, it

will be necessary to take steel wool and scour out the burnt material

and then re-season the wok once again. Each time that one has to

scour out the wok with abrasive material, then one should re-season

the wok.

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