/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.3863127]

Hey /ck/ I have a knife, a wok, and a spatula. I need to go to the grocery store and, since I have never used it, I want to use my wok tonight, any recipes?

> I have some other pots and a pan but assume I have little else.

[Anonymous No.3863140]

>implying you can use a wok

Yeah I'm sure your gas stove gets plenty hot enough.

[Anonymous No.3863144]

>>3863140
Well I have an electric stove. But can I not?

[Anonymous No.3863153]

>>3863140
As long as you don't overcrowd the pan it's fine.

[Anonymous No.3863158]

>>3863144
>wok
>electric stove

[Anonymous No.3863166]

>>3863158
Sometimes I forget that I am still on 4chan. Thanks for reminding me.

[Anonymous No.3863173]

>>3863166
Try heating a wok on an electric stove.

[Anonymous No.3863177]

>>3863173
Alright. It is on the stove.

[Anonymous No.3863181]

>inb4 OP has a hotspot on his wok about the size of a quarter, and it's cold everywhere else

[Anonymous No.3863189]

>>3863177

[Anonymous No.3863192]

>>3863144

The whole point of a wok is the blisteringly high heat in the center of it. That requires cooking over a special kind of charcoal stove or a gas burner. The heat level is at least an of magnitude higher than an electric burner. The heat level is super important because it's what creates the malliard reactions and carmelization which creates the flavors in stir-fried dishes. Google for "Wok Hei" if you want to learn more.

Electric stoves are silly to use with woks for two reasons. First, the heating element is flat but the wok is curved. That means there is very poor heat transfer from the electric element to the wok. Second, even if there was perfect heat transfer the electric element is simply too weak. A typical wok range is about 150,000 BTU, or higher. The large-size burner on an electric range is about 10,000 BTU.

If you want to do a stir fry with an electric range, you have to cheat. Use a very thick frying pan or skillet--it must be FLAT so that you get proper contact with the heating element. Heat it up until it is smoking hot, then do your stir fry. This works because you are storing the heat in your THICK pan, which is about the best you can do when you don't have a proper high-output gas burner.

Also, if you have a "turkey fryer" or similar outdoor gas burner you could use that for your wok. That is starting to get closer to the proper heat level you need.

[Anonymous No.3863197]

Get meat.
Get some cooking and seasoning fats (peanut/vegetable/soy oil, toasted sesame oil, lard etc).
Get some aromatics (onions, ginger, garlic, chilies, green onion whites, scallion whites etc)
Get some tougher/harder vegetables (carrots, broccoli stems, cabbage/mustard cores etc).
Get some tender vegetables (kohlrabi, celery, bell peppers etc).
Get some soft vegetables (bamboo shoots, baby corn, broccoli crowns, etc).
Get some leafy/leaf-like vegetables/herbs (snow/sugarsnap peas, thai basil, yu choi leaves, scallion greens, coriander/cilantro leaf, dill etc).
Get some sauces (fish, soy and oyster sauces, doenjang/miso paste, kochujang/chili paste, doubanjiang/bean paste etc).

Now... make a simple stir-fry.
If using pre-cooked meat, such as smoked fish, tinned tuna or Chinese barbecued pork, you can skip just beyond the greentext. You have to par-cook meat on Western cooktops because they don't get hot enough to cauterise the meat cuts, making the finished dish soggy.
>Slice meat up.
>Stir fry in your neutral-flavoured oil (peanut/vegetable/soy etc) until coloured, but not cooked through. Remove the meat from the wok and set aside.
Add more neutral-flavoured oil and some chopped aromatics of your choice; sauté until fragrant.
Add matchsticked, chopped or julienned harder vegetables and stir-fry a minute.
Add matchsticked, chopped or julienned tender vegetables and stir-fry a minute.
Add matchsticked, chopped or julienned soft vegetables as well as re-add the meat and stir-fry a minute.
Add shredded or sliced (or whole, if they're smaller leaves) leafy vegetables/herbs and stir-fry a minute.
Off the heat and add flavouring sauce(s) and stir-fry the final minute.
Serve.

[Anonymous No.3863199]

>>3863181
>>3863189
Pan was smoking and I cooked some meat on it. Took less than a minute. Pretty tasty. Thanks for the advice!

>Also it is not a TRUE wok, it has a flat bottom.

[Anonymous No.3863207]

>>3863197
Thanks Anon!

[Anonymous No.3863208]

>>3863199
>the pan was smoking

Hope you like the chemicals your food is now seasoned with.

[Anonymous No.3863212]

>>3863208
They were DELICIOUS!

[Anonymous No.3863216]

>>3863197
Oh, for ratios:
Generally, you want it to be about 1:1 by volume meat:non-leafy vegetables. You want to add about a handful or so of leafy vegetables/herbs for every 2 cups of meat/vegetable mixture. You want to add about 1½ tablespoons total of salty sauce(s) per 2 cups of meat/vegetable mixture. I like mixing a half tablespoon or so each (in the case of cooking 2 cups of meat/vegetable mixture) of fish, soy and oyster sauces as my finishing sauce for most of my stir-fried dishes. Another good one is a tablespoon of doenjang/miso paste mixed with a half tablespoon of rice wine, rice wine vinegar or soju/shouchu, adding a pinch of sugar to the miso-mixture, if desired, per 2 cups of meat/vegetable mixture.
A favourite and very easy to make stir-fry uses chicken thigh as the meat, garlic and ginger as the aromatics (with chilies, to taste), carrot as the hard vegetable, peppers as the tender vegetable, bamboo as the soft vegetable and Thai basil as the herb, finishing with fish, soy and oyster sauces.
This is pad bai kra p'hao gai. The addition of bamboo, carrot and peppers makes it a little less than traditional, but is a good way to round a meal.

[Anonymous No.3863250]

>>3863212
By "chemicals" he means "carcinogens."

[Anonymous No.3863327]

>>3863250
Well I did put butter in there and it burned right away (I think that might have been the smoke).

[Anonymous No.3863598]

Well status report. I don't care if it isn't technically "Stir Fry" but it was still tasty.

>Diced beef
>Onion
>Carrot
>Mushroom/Broccoli Stalk
>Broccoli Caps
>Cilantro
>Soy Sauce

How terribad did I do?

[Anonymous No.3863697]

>>3863598
Can anyone tell me if this combo sounds good? I thought the taste was worth the hassle but I am wondering if that was just pride in having done it.

[Anonymous No.3863757]

>>3863697

I think the cilantro is an...odd choice, and I have a personal dislike for mushrooms, but other than that I think you did alright.

[Anonymous No.3863775]

>>3863598
>calling it cilantro
>not coriander

[Anonymous No.3863793]

>>3863598

Good job, OP. Those ingredients make sense to me. And yeah, maybe it tasted better because you made it, but that's a good thing.

Now think about how to make it better next time. Maybe add some garlic, or some scallions at the very end. Maybe use some other seasoning in addition to the soy sauce.

But yeah, sounds goddamn tasty to me.

[Anonymous No.3863813]

>>3863173
I used a wok successfully on an electric stove for years. And now on an induction stove.

I'll pray for you to one day realize this is pretentious bullshit.

[Anonymous No.3863819]

>>3863598
Get fish sauce, oyster sauce, jasmine oil, garlic, chili, szichuan pepper or five-spice powder for next time!

[Anonymous No.3863828]

http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cooking-For-Dummies-Martin/dp/0764552473

recommended

i use sauces from this book all the fucking time

[Anonymous No.3864257]

>>3863757
>>3863697
>>3863793
>>3863819
Thanks guys! Earlier I almost gave up on trying to really cook on my own but decided "Fuck it, I'm going to do it anyway, those asshats don't have to eat it." (Though there were two cool posters earlier. The one who explained why a wok wouldn't work well and the one who gave me basic stir fry instructions).

Now to get new things to try!

[Anonymous No.3864258]

>>3863828
Thanks! Put on my wishlist.

[Anonymous No.3864598]

>>3863813

Lol. Of course you can cook something in a wok on an electric stove, you just aren't doing a proper stir-fry, you're just heating some veggies in a pan. If you're going to do that there's no point in using a wok. Just steam them or saute them western-style, that's what you're doing now anyway.

I pray that one day you might notice the difference between a properly cooked stir-fry as opposed to sauteed veggies, because what you're doing is the latter--you just think it's Asian because you're doing it in a wok.

[Anonymous No.3864602]

Yeah, I'm sure poor Chinese folks who have been using woks for generations have all these special arrangements.

[Anonymous No.3864603]

I've seen this done in a wok-style pan over a fire, and I've done it in a large frying pan over an electric hob, so this should work for you

North Caspian Rice
First, fry chopped onions and carrots in a large pan
Then add the meat and thoroughly brown
Add water and bring to the boil as a broth
Add any other vegetables, suggest peas, sweetcorn, corgette
Finally, add rice to the boiling broth
Put on a lid and leave to steam for about 25 minutes.
Serve as one lump on the plate.

[Anonymous No.3864609]

>>3864603
also note, this is from my notebook, so there will be spelling errors and it's not exactly heavy on the measurements

[Anonymous No.3864610]

>>3864603
The secret to fried rice is browning the rice in oil before adding other ingredients.

[Anonymous No.3864618]

>>3864602

Yes, they do in fact. It's simply a charcoal fire built in a specially shaped hearth with a tubular flue. The tubular flue generates a strong updraft which makes the fire burn hotter. A modern "wok range" at a restaurant is a copy of this same design.

Speaking of which, did you know that the old-fashioned iron potbelly stove that your grandma had? That thing cooks far better than a modern electric range for the same reason. It's not as convenient or safe, that's for sure, but those can throw some serious BTUs as well.

[Anonymous No.3864635]

>>3864610
See, I've never thought of it as fried rice before, I always just viewed it as a lazy way of cooking a lot of flavour into the rice with only one pot.

I'll have to try browning the rice slightly first next time, see how it goes.