Searching for a specific result is usually a lot harder when you actually don't realize what it is you're looking for. Over the last 15 years I've owned a few woks of different types, cast-iron, non-stick, carbon steel, but I've never achieved that "take-away" smokey taste of a proper stir-fry. For a long time I thought it was simply due to some unknown ingredient in the food that I didn't have, later on I learned that it's the high heat of gas burner that creates the aroma and taste. So when our new house came with a gas stove with a wok burner, I was happy. But after a lot of attempts, I still didn't cook something I hadn't previously done in a flat bottomed wok on an electrical stove...
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| Glorified noodle boiler. |
One day when we picked up some chinese take-away, we asked the owner about this aroma, and he said that it was due to the high heat from the gas burner. "Yeah, yeah, got one of those" I said. "No, you don't," was the answer and he invited us into his kitchen. "Behold!", he said and started the Jet Fighter that he had somehow buried underneath his kitchen. The flames reached up to eye level and were most impressive. "I concur", I said, full of wok burner envy.
Cue a few months later, having some friends around, I mentioned during apéritif my distinct lack of a proper wok burner, "I have a spare that you can have," was the answer. Not, "I have one", but "I have two", and I could have one of them. Happiness happening.
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| Cast iron happiness. |
Unfortunately, still after a few attempts I didn't achieve my goal and I knew that I still was missing something. Doing some more searching on the net brought up the term "wok hay/hei", which can be translated into "breath of the wok", and this is the technical term of the aroma I've been searching for. To achieve this, you not only need the high heat, you also need a well seasoned wok as well, meaning that you have to build up layers of burned oil in the wok, so that the inside of it is smooth as silk and black like a proverb. The initial seasoing is done by simply heating oil in the wok and then let it cool, but to reach Wok Hei, you need to actually cook in the wok, a lot.
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| Wok in progress |
So fingers crossed that I achieve my goal before we get tired of stir-fry.
