Searching For The Perfect Wok

this video is brought to you by squarespace from a website and online store to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful presence online or run your business now more on this later but for now ciao fun [Music] hey guys sally this is alex welcome back to the stir-fry series where i'm trying to perfect chao fan that's mandarin for fried rice not at a home cooking level no at a restaurant level in the previous episode in episode number two i had the unbelievable opportunity to meet a chinese cooking grandmaster basically a stir-fry artist i learned so much during that episode that is absolutely insane i guess the biggest takeaway i guess the biggest takeaway is that i now have a very clear and quite tangible representation of what great fried rice is supposed to not only look like but also taste like i mean when it's done amazingly right the fried rice he made was light fragrant warm but still fresh vibrant exciting and yet simple and precise and yet so comforting i was just looking for a great fried rice example something to inspire me and i feel like things have escalated i feel like i just got crushed basically by the chinese culinary monument one thing that really struck me with the chef was the way he actually stir-fried that dish like dancing almost the stirring utensil the pan and the stove and the man behind it everything was becoming just one this is my kind of ballet okay that's the dancing i like that importance of the stir-fry itself is something that was initially mentioned by stephanie from the youtube channel chinese cooking demystified yeah stir frying and rice okay are the basic components and ideas of what fried rice is in all honesty i did my share of stir-frying videos on this channel and i thought i had built up some stir-frying technique well after seeing what i've seen i need to go back to the drawing board like literally stir frying is about two things alright first of all the technique so the moves the timings and the heat control second stir-frying is about the tools obviously like the pan the stirring element the the stove that is also very important now you cannot practice your technique if you don't have the right tools so i'm going to start with these first and not because it's easier to just go and buy stuff than to actually put some work into this not because of that oh [Music] tool number one the pad all right let's see what we got so this right here is a frying pan not saying you cannot wrap up a good stir-fry with a frying pan but good it's not what i'm aiming at i'm aiming at a perfect fry rice so this is what i'm gonna use a wok well in case you've been living on planet mars a wok is basically like a salad bowl with a handle but it won't melt if you place it on the stove this is science i mean look at the shape of it beautifully gradual curve inside it's like a ramp for the food to jump it's calling for stir-fry okay so walks can be made out of different materials including cast iron very old works often where made out of cast iron does hold the heat just fine but it's either too heavy or too fragile look at this i let it down on the floor once and now i've got this enormous crack i might have another crack false alarm it's just grease stainless steel it's visually clean but in terms of desired properties it sucks it really is not non-stick it doesn't conduct heat well to be honest it's almost the worst here non-stick wok stir-frying is supposed to be performed on very high heat so non-stick pans should never be used on very high heat because it deteriorates the chemical coating inside basically the inside of your pan is going to melt different particles mixed in with your food that's not work hey man and that all leads us to my material of preference right here carbon steel carbon steel is light but solid it conducts heat well it can also be pretty non-stick if you season it right i made an entire episode about this it's almost perfect except this it's flimsy 0.8 millimeters in thickness for practice purposes i'm going to be using a portable gas stove and in this case having a thicker wok than this will matter very much because it's going to hold more heat this one i don't think so i don't think so i don't think so so the bottom of the wall can be flat or round flat is more of a home thing it's simply more suited for western domestic stove now at the restaurant the chef used a round bottom wok which allowed for a better smoother more fluid stir-frying movement so the second most important thing about the design are the handles you've got two choices here you've got the first one a long stick handle northern style wok and then you've got the cantonese style walk which has two short metal handles the long handle rock is the one that is the closest to a frying pan you can definitely pan toss with it i've seen it in restaurant but i've also seen it in people's home that walk seems to be more common in the north of china hence its name a northern walk or a mandarin walk now on the other hand the shop handle walk this walk seems to be more common in the south of china hence its name cantonese or southern walk i've seen it in restaurants many times but i haven't seen it in homes so much maybe in china but here it's not that common now the thing with this short-handed wok is that it's not supposed to be stir-fried in the air unlike this one which is basically because of the long handle and the leverage pretty easy thing to do no this one is supposed to rest on a pivoting point you see this structure underneath is gonna carry all the load i'm all for that plus there's also another super valid reason it looks so much more stylish i feel like i'm gonna look like a badass with this one i don't need excuses do i i gotta use this one there's no way around this not exactly this one because this is a pretty flimsy one that i got probably two years ago i didn't know what i was buying and so i had to resign myself to go and buy another one one that hopefully will be better oh i like this much better i can see all the hammering marks inside which is a very good sign 51 centimeter that's 20 inches in diameter the critical part is the thickness obviously 1.6 millimeters expected 1.5 delivers 1.6 i'm over the moon with this one a beautiful cooking vessel now the wok still is you know greasy and oily and rough on the edges but that was expected so if you want to transport carbon steel you have to coat it in some oil i'm basically going to first send the edges until they get a little smoother because i don't want to have any shards in my hands and then i just clean it i'm carrying i'm massaging the wok i might be pansexual that's an option [Music] right so the wok is now clean and also smooth i'm just gonna lightly coat it with fresh oil this is not for seasoning purposes but it's just gonna prevent the wok from rusting during practice time because there will be a lot of that i guess that's it for the walk let's just address the stirring utensil now this is what i use today like either a wooden or a metal spatula or spoon the problem is well there are many problems the curves don't match the rocks so much it's often too short it's not great to scoop especially with the high walls of a wok and also as a side note i've never seen a work chef using a small wooden spoon so this was another option this is something i've seen in southeast asia but not so much in china it's great for scraping it's not great for the rest if you want to scoop things they might fall off doesn't seem to be good for smashing so i guess my last and most promising option here is this one not your average ladle oval in shape it has an oversized head and the angle between the handle and the head is not the same as your typical ladle you can scoop in or out you can scrape you can add things without getting your hands off the handle you can smash you can even spread with that wide bowl of head bit like nail polish than people do with pizza when they spread the sauce it almost seems like that tool could never leave the hand [Music] i mean let's not pretend any further this is the one i'm going for it's completely weird to me to be using this for stir-fry but i'm up for the challenge i'm going full cantonese on this one i'm all in basically let's just settle down alex okay this is not war although i'm getting prepared for it i've got the sword i've got the shield i do need however a stir-fry practicing rig i have seen culinary students using something very similar this one this guy this guy is mastering it so that's exactly what i need i need to get this movement inside my body i need to build up some muscle memory and to make a practice rig for that job and just practice [Music] [Music] okay [Music] i was just 100 confident that i was going to swing it and that the rice was going to stir fry properly nothing happened like literally nothing happened when i do this nothing happened [Music] yes this one [Music] this is absolutely pointless all right so i just gave my little stir-frying rig a try using my super professional ladle and my top of the line authentic cantonese work and guess what it's way more complicated than i thought it would be sometimes i wonder what i was really expecting does this mean that i'm gonna give up no hell no this learning curve is like the carmelized bits at the bottom of band it's the best part to know that i can level up that there's a notion of things i can learn in front of me however just to bring the excitement down a bit uh it also means that i need to do things in the right order and instead of tackling a practice head-on i need first to build a solid layer of theory so that's basically what we're gonna do next week in the meantime take care bye bye okay let's talk about today's sponsor squarespace squarespace has powerful blogging tools to share recipes photos videos and recommendations categorize share and schedule your posts 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Channel: Alex

Views: 654,665

Keywords: wok, Chinese wok, wok pan, how to buy a wok, carbon steel wok, cantonese, northern wok

Id: 6gILWdpVzRI

Length: 15min 9sec (909 seconds)

Published: Sat May 15 2021