Lisa McManus Answers Your Questions About Woks | Gear Heads
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
- Watch the original episode: • Woks vs. Skillets: Do ...
Read our review of woks: cooks.io/32zIXvF
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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.
That's fantastic, thanks for letting me know!
Love Lisa's work. It's always thoughtful, knowledgeable, and informative. More please. I'm a wanna be gearhead.😄
Just love Lisa!
You are just so likable, knowledgeable and easy to listen to and trust!
Woks are great for making *well-rounded meals!*
That's a hot take!
😄 😄
Gonna make us hurt ourselves with your puns. :D
But I guess we can just wok it off.
GROAN
😄
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: 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.
Thanks for the link, Lisa. I just ordered on from The Wok Shop. My granddaughter and I are going to cook something together for Chinese New Year. She was born in a city northwest of Beijing. BTW, I was noticing how much Dan Souza looks like her dad earlier this evening.
I use my wok in the coals on my charcoal grill. Great heat and no mess on the stove when you make a double batch of fried rice!
Thanks Lisa! Awesome video 😃
Great video
Woks and skillets have their place in the kitchen, I have both and they are great.
Thanks for the content.
Lisa... you are awesome!
Yes!! Next time I make your karaage chicken it will be in my wok. Thank you!
Love the deep fat fryer use. Less wasteful, more fun. One can imagine swirling donuts, wok style. Thanks..
Great information. Thank you.
You're welcome!
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.
In my home, they aren't just phased out of everyday use; they're phased out all together. There's nothing that I need a wok for.
It's actually been many thousands of years.
Google: history of a/the wok.
Very fun and informative.
Enjoy!
same with cart iron and carbon steel. All you need to know is oil + pan make oiled pan, hot will make oiled pot hot, hot oiled pan become seasoned pan There is no special oil, heating method, or what not. Just get greased up and hot. The hot doesn't matter so long as it's hot, and the oil don't matter so long as it can get hot.
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.
Yes, it's important to be careful around storing and handling butane canisters. Thanks for adding this!! I wish I'd mentioned it in this video.
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.
I tried to buy the ATK recommended wok for a while but it's made of unobtainium.
lol. sounds like a very elusive material
I LOVE YOU LISA!!! BTW I just purchased the Breville Smart Oven Mini for my first studio apartment and i'm so excited :)
Awesome-hope you enjoy it!
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.
If you are feeling a little brave just ask your favorite chinese restaurant cooks and owners what they would recommend. You may be surprised at how willing they are to help.
For most of My life, I lived in an rural area that had NO Gas lines and since I had too many kids to have Gas tanks on the outside of the house - I used Electric - BUT I had the same 6 Burner Thermodor Electric Cooktop that Julia Child had on her original show and a Double electric 27" oven. I still have the cooktop although I would love to find a source for antique parts for it, and I just replaced my oven so both lasted over 60 years. Not having a choice, I found I could do everything with the electric. If it was good enough for Julia, I could not complain.
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
I have a carbon steel wok with screws (not rivets) holding the handle in place. I can fry an egg on it and it just slides off.
Can do the same with eggs in a seasoned All-Clad frying pan.
Round bottom vs. flat bottom wok? I have an old round bottom w/ring and I wonder if i'm missing anything.
Lisa,
What is the model number for the Iwatani burner you used?
I got it years ago, but it looks basically like this one: www.iwatani.com/za-3hp
Be unable to find the Wok you recommended. One site took my order but it has been back ordered for almost a year now.
You really don't need anything fancy. What you are looking for is something that is relatively light yet heavy enough that is can take a beating. The simpler the better.
I'd say avoid stuff from Walmarts and Targets because those don't last long.
If you are feeling up for it I highly recommend asking the owners and cooks at your local chinese restaurant what they would recommend for a home cook. Plenty of times they love when people are willing to learn more about their cuisine.
Have you seen Pailin's Kitchen, I think the shows are Hot Thai Kitchen. I looked up the link for you, she talks about woks and I saw the one she is using. ua-cam.com/video/8kJE4f4bgtM/v-deo.html
I put a link to our 2nd place wok up top in the comments, from The Wok Shop. It was a close second! Just a smidge heavier.
@@lisamcmanus6656 still don’t see a link anywhere for 2nd place wok. Not sure where it was posted?
@@chrisshinkle4841 Here you go: 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: 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.
Nice
You can only get Taylor and Ng Woks through their website. It’s always unavailable on Amazon...
Is it available again?
@@CreamyJalapeno on Amazon? From the looks of it no. I clicked on the link.
@@bigraydawg11 I went to the Taylor and Ng website. It looks like they are taking pre-orders for a July release of the flat bottomed winning wok.
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: 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.
I got mine on Amazon but it several years later
My mom refuses to get a wok because we only have an electric stove. How do I convince her we can still use one?
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.
You are absolutely right that there are uses for both pans, and you outline the uses well. Thanks for this thoughtful comment.
What is the best oil to use with a wok?
Any oil with a high smoke point such as vegetable oil, or peanut oil if you have no allergies. I like sunflower oil.
Thank you!
What about using a wok ring?
Grace told me that they're not needed with a flat-bottom wok, and that in general she finds they hold woks too high and block the heat. It's not a bad idea if you're deep frying, to add a bit of extra stability, but it's not 100 percent necessary, especially with flat-bottom woks.
Electric wok. Opinions, please.
Grace Young was not a fan; she said they don't get hot enough.
😊
You may struggle using a proper round bottom wok on an electric cooktop...
I love my carbon steel skillets and wok. The seasoning actually combines with the steel. You shouldn’t be able to scrape it off with a metal utensil. Something isn’t right.
What I was trying to say is: You actually can scrape a bit of the seasoning from a pan's surface if you scratch it with metal (I took a seasoned carbon steel skillet and seasoned cast iron skillet to MIT and we scratched the surfaces and looked at them under a very high powered microscope. The scratches looked like the Grand Canyon. Very cool.) The seasoning, which is polymerized oil, bonds to the metal, but it is less hard than the metal; you can scrub it off the pan's surface with steel wool. However, scratches from a cooking implement don't remove all of the seasoning; it's never going to peel off in sheets, and the scratches don't really affect the pan's ability to release food. More seasoning will fill the canyons of those scratches next time you cook.
中式炒鍋可以算上萬用鍋具，尤其是以熟鐵做成的。
不論煎、炒、煮、炸、蒸都可以用一個鍋子搞定。
Hi,please translate?
@@mssuezee6178 Google Translate is your friend: "Chinese wok can be counted as a universal pan, especially made of wrought iron. Whether frying, stir-frying, boiling, frying, or steaming can be done in one pot."
@@mssuezee6178 I used Google translate and it led me to his excellent youtube video: ua-cam.com/video/1PMasL_48rA/v-deo.html
@@mssuezee6178 ua-cam.com/video/1PMasL_48rA/v-deo.html
@@lisamcmanus6656 hi Lisa, thanks so much dear🇨🇦✌🙏
7:52 - “Chicken karaage (からあげ)” is pronounced “ka-ra-AH-geh.”
Thanks, I appreciate that. (I knew I'd mangled it.)
💟❤🧡💛💚💓💜💙
So i like the info,nd the presenter. Would like to hear something like 'First, gas is the best for woks. But they can be used on electric and induction, with good results. There are drawbacks, however. Let's dive in..'
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.
Hopefully they will get induction burners.
You could always get a propane tank on your property.
@@spikefivefivefive Propane counts.
#767
Cast iron is only one best cooking ware, the foods taste very good.
You lost points by the way you pronounced Karaage.
Hahaha I know- I knew I messed it up but kinda plowed ahead, then basically waited for this comment! You are right! 😄
All talk no demo-why would this be good on UA-cam?
(As she said) This video is in response to questions that people had after watching their "woks vs skillets" video. That was the "demo" video.
ua-cam.com/video/0DT2Rtt65P0/v-deo.html
@@bryanw2961 Thanks, Bryan!