During a recent weekend in San Francisco, V and I visited The Wok Shop in China Town to buy a new cast-iron wok and we are pretty excited about it! After bringing it home, we meticulously seasoned it as per the instructions of Randy at The Wok Shop and so far we have used it to make a couple of quick stir fries. However this weekend, I ended up doing a real wok-a-thon, making as many as six dishes as a treat for V. (With amma and V helping out, it did not feel like a lot of work.)
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| Broccoli with Ginger Sauce |
All the recipes were adapted for our vegetarian kitchen from The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young and Alan Richardson. We got this book so that we could learn more about cooking with and caring for our wok, but it turned out to be much more than that with all kinds of interesting ‘wok-lore’. The title of the book is a metaphorical translation of wok hay, which is the indescribable essence and energy a well-cared-for wok imbues in to the food cooked in it.
The recipes in the book are truly from a family kitchen and not the typical Chinese restaurant food. In subsequent posts, I will provide my vegetarian adaptations of the recipes in the book. In the meantime, here is the menu and a few notes about my experience with the wok.
A weekend vegetarian Chinese wok-a-thon menu
Inspired by The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young and Alan Richardson
- Aromatic Vegetarian Fried Rice
- Stir-Fried Garlic Spinach
- Broccoli with Ginger Sauce
- Spicy Garlic Eggplant
- Spicy Garlic Mushrooms with King Oyster Mushrooms
- Tofu with Fermented Black Bean Sauce (my way of continuing the fermentation series!)
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| Seasoning our wok with chopped yellow onion. The wok sits on a wok ring on the stove. |
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of cooking with the wok – the sizzling sounds and aromas as the ginger, garlic and shallots flash through the wok are addictive. Here are some general notes:
- Read the earlier post about how to season and maintain the wok and what can and cannot be cooked in a young wok versus an older one. Just as an example, while it is a perfectly okay to steam vegetables by placing a bamboo steamer right inside the wok, boiling water may not be the best thing to do until the wok has acquired some non-stickiness through regular use. So today I used my regular old steamer to steam the vegetables.
- V, who made two of the dishes, showed off his muscle power by lifting the wok with one hand to empty in to the serving dish. The traditional wok is unwieldy and needs some skill to use, so be careful not to drop a hot wok on your feet.
- You need a wok ring to place the wok on modern stoves as the bottom of a wok is rounded. Alternately you can buy a flat-bottomed wok.
- Get everything ready before turning on the stove – cut the vegetables, mix the sauces and keep the ingredients close by. The wok heats up very fast and stir fries are quick. Every ingredient is cooked just for 2-3 minutes, leaving the vegetables slightly crisp yet flavorful.
- Use an oil with a high smoke point because wok cooking is meant to be done at very high temperatures. Peanut oil or safflower oil are good, olive oil is not really ideal. (Olive oil is more nutritious when consumed raw.)
- Get a good wok chuan (spatula) to be able to turn the vegetables quickly in the wok.
- Stock your pantry with good quality organic ingredients, especially, make sure that you use an organic non-GMO soy sauce (I use Kikkoman Organic Naturally Brewed Soy Sauce).
- Cleaning the wok: As I made six dishes in the wok back-to-back, I just rinsed it with hot water between dishes. After the last dish, I used a cleaning method recommended in The Breath of a Wok. (Interestingly we use a similar method in South India to clean our iron vaanalis.) White rice is a staple in both Southern China and South India. Before cooking, it is customary to thoroughly wash the rice in a couple of changes of water. The water from washing the rice is saved so that it can be used to soak the wok after cooking. After it has been soaked for not more than an hour, wash with hot water using a very soft sponge to remove any stuck food. Dry immediately and put away.
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| Aromatic Vegetarian Fried Rice |
Recipes coming up soon!