cooking advice requested

[waider]

I know there are several cooking-fanatical people on my friendslist, so I figure at least ONE should be able to bail me out here: I have a wok. I do not have a gas burner to sit it on. I have a halogen/ceramic electric cooker which has a 0-6 power range, and that’s it. I have made several unsuccessful attempts to do useful wok things, but ultimately I run into one of two problems: (a) smoke and (b) more oil than I’m happy with in the end result. So. Given that I cannot, at the drop of a hat, replace my halogen/ceramic heat source with something that might actually be wok-friendly, I have the following questions:

1. How should I best determine the optimal setting for heating the wok? I am leery of anything that involves smoke generation, due to a hypersensitive smoke alarm that’s hooked into the house upstairs and which I cannot switch off once it’s triggered
2. Is the excessive oil down to too much oil in the wok, or incorrect heating?
3. Should I just give up on the wok entirely, and buy chinese from the local takeaway (it is quite good)?

That is all, thank you in advance for any input (especially useful input)

Comments

[merde.livejournal.com]

give up the wok and get yourself a large nonstick skillet. that's what i do all my stir-frying in; i have an electric stove and could never get the hang of woks anyway.

it's also possible to get a flat-bottomed wok, at least here in the US. they're usually a bit smaller and have a handle, which makes them much easier to use.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

I second Meredith's advice. You can get a flat-bottom wok which is half-decent by wok standards but more appropriate to what you've got than a round-bottom wok. Electric stoves heat by conduction, and a round-bottom wok doesn't have enough surface in contact with the elements to do any good at all.

Oil quantity is something I've never mastered either. Just use less oil and stir/agitate the pan more. If the food comes out dry or unevenly cooked, use more next time. The secret to doing it well is practice, and my stirfryings have usually been bachelor's 'what's old in the fridge?' affairs rather than planned recipes.

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

Thirding the notion of a flat-bottomed wok. I have a sturdy one with a Teflon interior, and I use it all the time.

I have an electric stove too. When I'm cooking, I often have the wok going and the flat frypan going at the same time. I find I'm constantly adjusting the temperatures - I'd say, don't expect to keep the heat on the same temp all the time. For most things, I'll start the cooking around medium-high, to get things going, and then temper it down a little, maybe nudging it up again toward the end - and if you're cooking with 2 pots you're also adjusting things so all the food is cooked at the same time.

If you use very little oil and fear things getting dry, you can always splash on a little olive oil at the end, or sesame oil for an Asian taste and aroma.

Ben Soo thinks it's futile to do Asian-style stir-fries over anything but a gas ring.

[boutell.livejournal.com]

The gas ring is nicer, but I have a Circulon fancy-nonstick "wok" pan, and that works really well for me even on the nasty electric stove I'm stuck with until I can find an installer who isn't refusing the work in favor of installing air conditioning for overheated elderly people. Which, um, they should do, of course.

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

Fourthing the flat-bottomed wok idea: the round-bottomed ones don't make enough contact with halogen/ceramics to get reasonable thermal control. I have an electric hob, and use a flat-bottomed wok on it with good results. Part of the problem is that it'll take longer to warm up in the first place, so it's tempting to overdo the heat to speed up the process. That's OK, so long as you remember to turn the heat down a little once the wok is up to temperature. I tend to run things pretty hot in the early stages (almost, but not quite, smoking), then turn the heat down to finish off dishes (adding additional flavourings, or creating a little sauce).

If things are coming out oily, then you are using too much oil. For stir-frying for one person, you shouldn't need more than about a tablespoon of oil: you ensure that things won't stick by keeping them moving. I'd recommend groundnut or grapeseed oil for stir-frying, although sunflower is just about acceptable. Olive oil burns too easily for high-temperature cooking, as does sesame oil. As zadcat says, you can add a little sesame oil at the end, for flavour. If things are a little dry, there's also nothing wrong with adding a little water (or stock) to create a little sauce at the end of cooking.

Save buying stuff from the local Chinese until you have a new job. :)

[wisn.livejournal.com]

I don't know about what Chinese groceries are like in Dublin, but even in relatively podunk hereabouts the cookware at the Chinese groceries are better for their purpose than in the honky stores, and cheaper. Also shorter lifespans - I love my $5 Chinese cleaver but it gets nasty with rust with no effort at all, while the $mumble German cleaver has nowhere near the heft and control, but it will outlast me.

A cheap steel wok works better than an expensive Teflon-coated unit. That's contingent on being able to get the pan hot enough. On the other hand, I've never seen flat-bottomed woks at a Chinese grocery. A decent broad steel pan with round, deep sides might work better than a flat-bottomed wok for an electric stove.

If you watch stir-fry made by the pros, the food in the wok never stops moving unless it's in sauce. They're continually stirring and banging the pan around. All the mythos and specificity of tools aside, that's probably the best way to approximate their technique: high heat (higher than you should keep Teflon at), continually stirring.

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

Short version: I think I agree with everything said by wisn here. Now for the slightly longer version.

Can't speak for Dublin, but the Chinese grocery stuff is true for over here, too (although my £5 cleaver isn't prone to rust: it tends to lose its handle instead). They are also good for dirt-cheap bamboo steamers. Non-stick "woks" are best avoided, as the non-stick tends to fall apart at stir-fry temps, but woks of various types are available at a variety of stores.

The other advantage of woks (including the flat-bottomed ones) for stir-frying is that you can shove stuff up the sloping sides for a while, if you want it to be subjected to a gentler heat. Some large frying pans will alow this, but to a more limited extent.

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

On pondering this, I think a big distinction is what you expect to achieve via the cooking technique. You'll never fry anything truly crisp at electric temperatures, I think is the distinction. I don't expect to. But you can produce some perfectly OK stir-fry in a lesser sense.