Hi, I'm Eric. I'm a professional chef,
and today I'm gonna teach you everything you need to
know about woks. We're gonna be talking about how
to choose one, how to clean one, how
to season it, and of course how to cook
in one. Prepare to receive more wok knowledge than
you ever hoped to have in your entire life.
This is Walk 101. At its core, a
wok is a hot bowl. It hugs food,
it keeps food cradled in such a way that you
can toss them differently. You can also steam,
you can braise, you can stew, you can
season and emulsify in a very different way than from
using a frying pan. That's really what makes them
special. And there's a reason why woks play such
a pivotal role in Asian cuisine and history. The
thin metal is very receptive to a scarcity of combustible
fuel, so you're always meant to be cooking things
really quickly. That's how you really need to think
about the wok when you're using it. When it
comes to woks, there are so many options out
there, all sorts of shapes, sizes, materials
, carbon steel, cast iron, Teflon, all
the non-stick ones. They all have viable uses and
they'll all get the job done. So for a
home cook, I would recommend either heavier carbon steel
or cast iron. These are gonna be kind of
unwieldy for a restaurant. They're heavy, they get
tiresome to use all night. But if you're just
cooking a couple of dishes, they retain heat really
well. So you're gonna have better non-stick properties,
better heat distribution as you cook. It's a little
more challenging to do. That with thin carbon steel
. If not, filing that nonsticks are great.
They're very simple. They're obviously very forgiving, and
you can still make great food out of them.
So this is a nonstick walk. I think they're
perfectly acceptable for your home cook. People have their
feelings about Teflon and plastics and such like that.
But if you maintain it well, these were great
and they last a really long time. Personally,
I use these all the time. I think they're
very easy. They make clean up really easy,
so no shame about using a non-stick walk. This
is a restaurant style walk. It's thin carbon steel
. It's very light, it's inexpensive. The handle
is just riveted here. This is what it looks
like when it's brand new in the store. It's
not ready to cook on yet. You need to
season it. These aren't ideal for your home cook
. The firepower you have at home is not really
enough to keep this thing hot and non-stick the entire
way through. These are better suited to a restaurant
. This is the same thing, only it's been
seasoned. So as you can see, it's a
pretty dramatic difference. It turning black is the oils
carbonizing together with the metals and hopefully forming a non-stick
surface. If you maintain this well. Lasts a
really long time, even in a restaurant setting.
This is the walk that Epicurus recommends. This is
carpet steel, really great material for your cookware to
be made out of. It has almost all the
same heat retaining properties as cast iron, but it's
a lot lighter and easier to clean and maintain.
It's heavy but not too heavy, so I mean
it's going to retain heat, but it's still able
to be manipulated pretty well. It has this nice
angled handle, which is ergonomically friendly, and the
wooden handle is great. It's never gonna get too
hot. You're not gonna hurt yourself grabbing it.
It has a nice flat bottom. This is good
here for your electric tops or even your gas top
or induction, and then it has a handle here
. So if you got something heavy in it,
it's full of soup, full of stew, you
can just use a towel here to grip it here
, easier to manipulate, safer, non-stick or already
. You don't need to go through the process of
seasoning it at home. I don't think there's any
reason to spend more than$50 or$60 on a
good wok. This one, for example, is
about$50 to$60. You can get it online
. So for a lot of good reasons, this
is a really nice home walk. Seasoning a wok
means to create a protective nonstick layer basically by burning
the bejesus out of it and adding a light sheet
of oil. That heat will cause the oil to
bond to the metal. If we did it right
, it'll stay nonstick for a very long time,
so long as we don't do anything too damaging to
it. What we have here is a round bottomed
. Seasoned carbon steel wok. woks should never look
kind of silvery and chrome like this. They need
to be dark black because that indicates they have been
seasoned. This is not ready to cook in.
This round bottom does not sit very well on these
Western style burners, so I am using a wokring
. Very inexpensive, very handy to begin seasoning.
Turn on the heat. Wait. So in a
restaurant, you would have this giant jet burner that
cradles the wok perfectly, and you would turn it
on full blast, and this whole thing would turn
black very quickly. You'd add a light sheet of
oil, let it chill out, cool down for
a second, done, season. That's a little
harder to do at home because you have this gas
burner that doesn't quite exactly fit the wok, so
you're gonna have to show some patience, let it
heat up, especially this is like thicker, heavier
carbon steel. We're gonna take our time with it
and let it just heat up until It starts to
turn color. And once we get there, we'll
add a light sheen oil and then hopefully we'll be
ready to go, ready to walk. We're looking
to achieve a process called polymerization. Once oil reaches
a certain temperature, it's going to fill the microscopic
pores of the metal. And what you're doing is
developing a patina, which is a non-stick protective layer
of carbonized metal. And oil and fat. We're
in there. Look at that shiny iridescence, getting
a little darker. We're gonna get the edges,
getting every edge ripping hot until it turns color.
OK, it's turned a blue, purplish, dark
silver kind of color. That means we're quite hot
here. So be careful, turn your heat off
. All right, the lycheen oil. I'm gonna
get a bunch of paper towels here. Moisturize your
pan, basically what we're looking for. It is
normal to create a lot of smoke during this process
. So do this in a well-ventilated area. Metal
is super hot right now, so the pores are
open and that's only gonna be a short window.
And then as you let it cool down, it's
going to Absorb all that oil and form a beautiful
nonstick layer. OK, so as you can see
, pretty dramatic transformation. It was this light silver
color. Now it is distinctly dark blue slash black
. It's only going to get darker over time.
That's what it takes to season your walk. Look
at that thing, beautiful. So when it comes
to working with the wok, 90% of the work
is done ahead of time. You have all your
ingredients, seasonings measured out, everything ready, the
noodles are blanched. That way, everything comes together
in just about a minute or two. Today,
I am making some stir-fried noodles, a little bit
of oil in. Oil is readily smoking, that
means we're good to go. I'm gonna add some
sausage in first to render a little bit. I'm
gonna add my carrots. The hottest part of the
wok is on the bottom. This flat bottom part
, add my veg in. Gonna keep tossing.
You're not trying to color anything too aggressively, you're
just trying to get it cooked and go snow peas
. So this is just what I like to add
to my noodle, but you can add whatever you
like. You're always moving stuff so it's not burning
. You can take it off the heat for a
second if you need to, then I'm going in
with the noodles, and then You're rocking the wok
going forwards and backwards, constant movement, a little
bit more oil, MSG or salt. I'm constantly
tossing. Again, you don't want any color here
. You take it off the heat for a second
. I'm gonna add my seasonings. I got my
light soy sauce. I got my wine, oyster
sauce. We're bringing it back on the heat.
I have my liquid seasonings here. I'm gonna add
it to the edge of the pan just to cook
down a little bit. Moving it constantly, a
little bit of oil. We're getting that hot flavor
into it, that walkhe, that breath of the
wok, constant movement, best you can on your
home burner. I like to add scallions at the
very end just to wilt them a little bit.
That's it. A very quick, simple noodle stir
fry. It was really only about a minute or
two of cooking over really high heat, and you're
adding your ingredients in. Each one requires a different
amount of cooking time. It's all about movement,
timing, preparation. You're gonna make great stir fries
. Let's talk about cleaning your wok. It should
be a very simple process. While it's hot,
you just add some water to it to steam off
the crud. There shouldn't really be that much if
you maintain a nice non-stick coating. You just give
it a light scrub, a rinse, wipe it
out, to be dry, and that's that.
This wok has been poorly treated. Some of this
looks like oil, some of it looks like rust
. It is salvageable, but it is going to
take some effort. First step, Put it on
a high heat and let it rip. We are
going to turn all this gunk into ashes. It's
a lot like maintaining a cast iron. You don't
need any soap. You should be able to just
use a steel wool ball. We're smoking already here
, um, while it's hot. This is the
easiest time to scrub all this gunk off. As
you can see, all elements of the wok require
some heat to manage it. Here we go.
All right, hope it's not lost. It's coming
alive. So all this black dust that we're picking
up, it's all the grease and the rust that
caked on. We're scraping it off, turning it
into ash. All right, I think I've scrubbed
most of the gunk off. So now all that's
left to do to re-season this thing, bring it
back to life. I turn the heat off.
I'm gonna add a light sheet of oil. Swirl
it around Kind of keep you in the same thing
a couple times. You just need a little bit
of oil. I think the temptation would be to
put a lot, and that's not what you want
. You want a very thin layer to get extremely
hot. That way it's going to blow past its
smoke point and it's going to polymerize. It's gonna
turn into a non-stick coating kind of like we see
here. You have too much oil. It's gonna
be too cool for that process to happen. This
is probably still gonna need a little time and love
, but from where we started, this isn't so
bad. We're getting back that dark blue, almost
black patina with some more use and care, some
more regular maintenance. This thing will be as good
as new. Walks. Hopefully you have better understanding
of how to cook, how to season, how
to repair one. A walk really is a wonderful
investment for your kitchen. Keep building your relationship with
your wok.