Cooking with a Wok
From: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/04/18/2008666/keys-to-stir-fry-success.html
I was in the presence of a wok doctor.
Award-winning cookbook author Grace Young was in Chapel Hill promoting “Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Recipes and Stories,” in which she details common mistakes by home cooks who turn out gloppy braises in their woks, instead of crisp, intensely flavored stir-fries. Demoralized by their lack of success, their woks languish, unused and rusting.
That exactly described the state of wok affairs in my house. I have made many of the mistakes Young warns against. I have added cold oil to a cold wok. I have used sesame oil instead of peanut oil. I have dumped too much meat and sauce in the center of the wok. I have even tried to stir-fry soggy, formerly frozen, vegetables. My results ranged from OK to awful.
Award-winning cookbook author Grace Young was in Chapel Hill promoting “Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Recipes and Stories,” in which she details common mistakes by home cooks who turn out gloppy braises in their woks, instead of crisp, intensely flavored stir-fries. Demoralized by their lack of success, their woks languish, unused and rusting.
That exactly described the state of wok affairs in my house. I have made many of the mistakes Young warns against. I have added cold oil to a cold wok. I have used sesame oil instead of peanut oil. I have dumped too much meat and sauce in the center of the wok. I have even tried to stir-fry soggy, formerly frozen, vegetables. My results ranged from OK to awful.
So I asked Young for a stir-fry lesson. It began as we unloaded
ingredients and my wok from the car. With one look at the wok’s mottled
and rusty appearance, she declared: “Oh, yeah. That wok needs a facial.”
We would soon get to that, but first Young would deftly show and
teach me the basics. That’s a passion for Young, who says, “I feel most
Americans end up with mediocre results because they’ve never been told
how to stir-fry.”
Young, who lives in New York, used to be the
test kitchen director for Time Life books. In the 1990s, craving a more
personal project, she traveled back home to San Francisco to cook with
her 70-year-old mother and 82-year-old father. Those trips home led to
her first cookbook, “The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen.” Now on her
third award-winning cookbook, Young is considered an expert on Chinese
cooking.
The demo recipe she shows me is Chinese Trinidadian
Stir-Fried Shrimp with Rum, an example of food of the Chinese diaspora
that shows how Chinese immigrants adapted to whatever ingredients were
available (here, rum and lime juice) and adopted local cooking
techniques.
The first thing to understand is that high heat is
crucial to successful stir-fries. Home cooks have to maximize the heat
that they have. On average, American stoves put out 7,000 British
thermal unit, while wok burners in Chinese restaurants range from 80,000
to 150,000 Btu. Since home cooks are starting with such lower Btu,
Young explains, anything that drops the temperature of a wok is bad.
That’s
why you pat dry the meat and seafood before cooking. “If you put
sopping wet shrimp in a wok, you are going to hear a sizzle then a
‘crrrch,’” Young says. That “crrrch” is the sound of the temperature
dropping in the wok.
Young prepares all of her ingredients before
she starts, a key step since the stir-fry takes only a few minutes. She
minces garlic and ginger. She mixes together ketchup, rum and soy sauce
for a sauce. She cuts tomato, green pepper and onion into thin slices.
Everything is lined up next to the stove. Then she grabs a small saucer
of water to test the heat of the wok.
“Here we go,” Young says.
She
lights the gas burner to preheat the wok. She sprinkles water droplets
onto the wok’s surface. When the water evaporates in 1 to 2 seconds, the
wok is hot enough. She pours the oil down the sides of the wok and
swirls to coat. She adds the aromatics – ginger and garlic in this case –
and they sizzle for about 10 seconds. Then she adds the shrimp,
spreading them in one layer so all are touching the surface.
“The beauty of a wok is the heat spreads up the sides and can be used as a cooking surface,” she says.
Once
the shrimp start to sear, she adds the vegetables, tossing everything
together with a slotted flexible metal spatula, often called a fish
spatula. She stirs everything constantly until the shrimp are cooked
through and then adds the sauce.
“Swirl in the sauce along the edge of the wok,” she instructs. “If you do it in the center, it takes down the temperature.”
The
actual cooking – from lighting the stove to spooning the meal into
serving bowls – took at most 5 minutes. (Prepping the vegetables and
shrimp went quickly, too.) “It should be eaten as hot as possible,”
Young says. We dig in, enjoying the crisp vegetables, the tang of the
sauce, the tender shrimp.
Afterward, Young takes my wok in hand
for its restoration. Scouring the wok with salt and oil, Young rubs the
rust and dirt away. After a second facial, the wok has shed its rust and
is on its way to a burnished patina.
Our lesson ends with Young’s final instructions: “Dr. Young says one more facial, and the patient should be fine.”
See links for recipes from this article. They are listed in the appropriate category in my recipes:
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