h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: How To Season a Wok - A782741
Author: Witty Ditty - Revising for the 'Exams of Death'; in her own Virtual Insanity - yep, the floor moves as well... - U173978

After just having to re-season my wok, here's an entry on just how to do that

Stay ,
WD

Looks good!

I'm afraid I have nothing particularly constructive to say. I just wanted to say "let's go to wok!" before anyone else did.

No, actually, something has occured to me....

It's *absolutely fine* as it is as an entry in its own right, but perhaps there's scope for a wider entry about cooking with the wok and woks in general. But this doesn't have to become that entry.

Best of luck with the exams!

Otto

Yep, that's how I season my wok too, except that I put a couple of pinches of salt in with the oil. It helps to make it non-stick.

It's a very good thing to know, how to prepare a wok, and I think the entry stands well on its own

It might be worth expanding it to cover other similar utensils, such as cast-iron frying pans - the process is almost the same, except that the frying pan doesn't change colour the way that a new wok does.

One thing which doesn't read quite right - I think the bit about the kitchen getting smoky should be at the beginning of the 'Step 1' paragraph rather than at the end of the previous para.

I agree with Gosho on this one. Actually on seeing the title, my first thought was 'You can use the same method to season a frying
pan'. Maybe you could put a footnote in saying this method works for frying pans as well.

That would work

Done - and also added a warning note on adding oil to the really hot wok after trying to season a different wok, and finding out that it was a lot hotter than I previously thought....

There is probably another entry for the 'wok - king of pans'; certainly an entry when I come out the other side of these exams....

Thanks for commenting guys!

Any further comments will be, as always, gratefully received!

Stay ,
WD

Nothing to add





apart from a bad taste joke...



do you know about the chinese cooking book '100 ways to wok your dog' ?

Oh good grief. You do well to run away Bossel

* lurks back *

sowwy, couldn't resist

Is Bossel forgiven?

Yeeeaahhh - I suppose so

One point not mentioned is that when you have seasoned a wok this way you have to take care not to use washing up liquid on it.

if you do, it goes into the pores of the wok in the same way as the oil does, and then comes out again in the cooking. As you can imagine, this tastes horrible.

it is so hard to fix this after the fact that most people throw away the wok and get a new one.

I don't know if this problems applies to frying pans, but I don't see why it shouldn't be as equally applicable as the seasoning method.

This is a great entry. I love it There was only one very tiny thing that stood out to me. When you say 'Wet a folded up kitchen towel' I immediately thought about water, rather than oil. Perhaps it should read 'Put some oil on a folded up kitchen towel, just enough to wet it'. Not sure about the flow of that, but see what you think.

An interesting point (perhaps for another entry) is that woks in the East don't have flat bottoms, they have rounded ones, which helps with the distribution of heat and even cooking. They're no good on western hobs, but when I lived in Thailand very few people had cookers anyway. Most people had wok burners (constructed so the wok rests steady on the burner). Or barbecue grill type things for other methods of cooking.

Hiya! Changes abound:

> replaced wet with grease
> added warning note about detergent

Xyroth - I've already mentioned that this method can be used for frying pans in footnote 2

Anna - I've partially mentioned the 'round bottomed/flat bottomed' affair in footnote 1, but I'm going to hold off wok information for a further entry on the wok itself

Thanks both very muchly for commenting

Any further comments, will be as always, gratefully received

Stay ,
WD

Hi WD,

I enjoyed reading this and will bear it in mind for future reference.

Can you get decent use out of a wok with metal hobs? I rather assumed it had to be gas to heat up the sides properly. I suppose there's no reason why, though... (not too bright on the physics side, )

One comment on the text,

>>Do not pour the oil in as it will catch fire - remember, the wok is really quite hot at this point.
<<

Well, two things, really - I think the first half would be better in bold than italics. It really is an important warning, I think. and the second bit sounds a bit half-hearted. why not, 'remember, the wok is still very hot at this point.'

just a thought.

oh yeah, and my compliments on a fine use of 'must needs'!

seeya
spiff
*you best not wait too long on the wok entry - looks like everyone fancies that one! *

Hiya Spiff!

Made the change about the warning - it's now bold-italic for extra emphasis

As for gas v electric hobs, gas is far superior in my experience, but I don't know the science behind that. Either way, you must get the wok so hot for it to smoke before it is the right temperature for cooking, and with gas, that happens a lot quicker than with electric

As for the potential wok entry, if I was going to write that, then it won't be until after my exams - so if anyone wants to start it off in the meantime, please do!

Cheers for commenting Spiff!

Any further comments will be as always, gratefully received

Stay ,
WD

Gas is much better for cooking anything because it's a consistent heat. You simply turn the gas ring to whatever heat you want and it gives you a steady flame.

Electric rings switch on and off according to the setting of a thermostat, so it will heat for a while, then switch off, then heat, etc, unless it's on the highest setting, in which case it will stay on indefinately. Also, as most electric rings aren't perfectly flat, nor are a lot of pan bases, there are are always points on the bottom of the pan which don't touch the ring, which gives uneven heating.

Trust me, I'm a ... well, not really a . I used to be a sugar boiler in a number of different sweet factories

I know you mentioned that you can season frying pans the same way.

What I was not sure of was if the problem of the soapy flavour applied equally to the seasoned frying pans.

hope that clarifies it.