The Chinese wok is a distinguished utensil in the kitchen because of its versatility. It’s used for stir-frying, deep-frying, steaming, boiling, blanching, braising, stewing, and smoking—it’s an all-purpose tool for a wide spectrum of Chinese cooking styles. A Chinese wok is also a kitchen tool that you want to use and keep for a long time as the glorious patina builds over time, which essentially “coats” the wok with a nonstick layer.
There are two kinds of woks: cast iron and carbon steel. In my kitchen, I use both a pre-seasoned 14-inch lightweight cast iron wok by Wok Star (http://wokstar.us) as well as a carbon steel wok. I also have a high quality stir-fry pan, which I use for braising and stewing and other dishes that don’t require intense heat. It’s undeniable that the best and most refined Chinese dishes are cooked with a wok, but you can use a stir-fry pan for all the recipes in this cookbook. The biggest difference between a wok and a stir-fry pan is the nonstick coating on the stir-fry pan, which is user-friendly, especially for beginners to wok cooking. The nonstick surface also means that there is no need for the seasoning. The main downside for using a stir-fry pan versus a traditional wok is that a regular nonstick stir-fry pan is not recommended for intense high heat and hence it’s very hard to produce wok hei or “the breath of wok,” which is highly prized in Chinese cooking. To learn more about wok cooking, I recommend Grace Young’s books: The Breath of Wok and Stir-frying to the Sky’s Edge.
