Sunday, March 21, 2010

New Wok



Bought from Amazon (The Wok Shop) - 12 inch Carbon Steel Wok with Helper Handle (flat bottom) - for 28.

The seller sent the "Seasoning Tip":

The wok is carbon steel and has to be seasoned to prevent it from rusting. The seasoning process is relatively easy to do. Just wash and dry your wok thoroughly.
Coat lightly, interior and exterior , with cooking oil. Bake in hot oven, 425 degrees for 20 minutes. Place in oven upside down. (before baking, remove side handle and cover spool handle with damp dishcloth and cover dishcloth with alum foil. This will protect your wooden handle. You will have to dampen cloth each time you bake because heat will dry out dampened cloth...2 times...) Remove from oven, let cool to touch and scour wok with an abrasive pad.
Scour the "seasoning" or patina away...like you want the wok back to its original finish. Wash, dry, coat and bake again...same process. Do this 2 times. After the last baking, you will not be able to scour the seasoning away...and that is the result you want. The wok is seasoned. The more you use the wok, the better and blacker it gets., You cannot ruin the wok. If you neglect it and it should get rusty, not to worry, Just scour away the rust and season again. A wok should last almost a lifetime. A wok also gets better with age...the older the better.
If you use a gas stove, you can try seasoning the salt method; just wash wok thoroughly and dry. Pour l cup of table salt into wok and with a high flame, stir salt constantly 20 minutes to 1/2 hour. Wipe wok clean and oil lightly with cooking oil. Voila! a seasoned wok with no muss no fuss. After the wok has been seasoned, it would be a good idea to stir fry a handful of pungent veggies, e. g. chives, onions, scallions, ginger, garlic, until charred. This will remove the metallic. Toss charred veggies out and wok will be seasoned and ready to wok.
You can use your wok to not only stir fry, but deep fat fry, steam, braise, stew, boil, saute, smoke and pop popcorn.
The more you use your wok the better and blacker the wok gets and will develop a nice patina and will get to a point where it will become naturally non-stick.

I followed the tip and seasoned the work!

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