Wok Hei: The Breath of a Wok | The Compost Bin | Forums

I think I may need to find a cooking forum if I am to further explore this topic to any sort of depth, but this has become my home forum and I figure the topic may be of interest here, so its as good a place to start as any.

I've recently been given the challenge of needing to drastically change my eating habits. I've been banned from a long list of foods, nearly all that were staples in my daily diet. While I've managed so far to avoid the forbidden foods, maintaining will require completely retraining myself. My greatest challenge here is to avoid feeling overwhelmed and keeping things simple enough that I can stick with it.

I've already been advised to look into the "Mediterranean Diet", but I believe I will also be well served by looking into an authentic Chinese (read: not the fake Americanized "Chop Suey" most think of) diet. And that brings me to the Wok: High heat, fast cooking, and healthy ingredients.

I have this memory from my childhood of watching some cooking show and the chef talking about what a "real wok" was. I couldn't remember which show or chef, but a little research has me guessing it was the Frugal Gourmet. I specifically remember the chef talking about the wok being hand hammered and having visible ridges or dimpling that held food in place when you pushed it up the side.

I think that was a romanticized notion, but it stuck. Some of the reading I've done thus far suggests that from a culinary perspective, there is no difference between an artisanal hand hammered wok and a machined wok. Watching videos of real wok cooking in China, the woks are not ridged or dimpled, they are smooth and there isn't much pushing food up the sides. Real woks have round bottoms, are carbon steel or cast iron, are well seasoned, and cooking is done over special burners that put out very high heat.

The pinnacle of wok cooking is called Wok Hei which translates to The Breath of a Wok and is imparted by a combination of technique, high heat, and a well seasoned wok breathing flavor into the food. For my purposes, its a way to try keeping things interesting enough that hopefully I can stick to my new dietary restrictions.

While I would like to use a high heat dedicated wok burner, I'm a little concerned about the potential hazards of fire, smoke, and splatter. Conventional kitchens are not very well suited. My cramped apartment kitchen has little room for error, and as a beginner, I will err. I will start with a real round bottom carbon steel wok on a wok ring over a burner on my conventional gas stove. In time, if I find myself doing enough wok cooking to justify it, I may try moving up to a dedicated burner and/or WokMon.

Some starting points...

The Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore ISBN-10# 0743238273

What to look for when buying a wok

The Wok Shop (and dimpled)