In my experience, there are two kinds of home cooks that use woks: People who happen to grab a wok as an addition to their pots and pans collection, and those who want to develop and take care of a great cooking tool. In my college years and throughout my 20s, I was the first kind—I knew woks were generally reliable, and I had a very basic, low-quality, non-stick wok that I used for everything from stir fry and arrabbiata pasta to tofu scrambles and, yes, even reheated pizza (side note: the Balmuda toaster, which I recently reviewed here, is my new favorite tool for reheating ‘za). My wok wasn’t seasoned, didn’t really heat evenly, and the lid had been lost long ago; it just screamed “entry-level wok from Target.” It made decent food, but in my universe-brained, 20/20-hindsight 30s, I know that most of that food would have been better using a good skillet or pan, like the now-beloved Always Pan or a beautiful Caraway option.
As an adult interested in making high-quality Chinese food and other high-heat cooking beyond (and, now, knowing enough to prepare arrabbiata in different cookware), I decided to invest in an actually-good wok, thus graduating to become the second kind of wok owner: the person who takes it seriously, finds a solid wok, keeps it seasoned properly, and—most importantly—turns out excellent food again and again.
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Whereas ancient civilizations had people like Socrates and Nostradamus to tell them what to do, we have J. Kenji López-Alt, i.e., one of the sage philosophers at the intersection of food science and popular cooking. In his most recent book, effectively titled The Wok: Recipes and Techniques (an amazingly concise title for a 672-page tome), López-Alt offers “quick and dirty” recommendations for picking up a wok to use at home. He explains, “get yourself a 14-inch, flat-bottomed, carbon steel wok made with material around 2 [millimeters] (14 gauge) thick, with a single long handle and a helper-handle on the opposite side.” The ensuing section broke down these recs even further and addressed potential questions, and after reading it, I had a sense of what kind of wok to pick up.
I’d read a lot of positive things about Joyce Chen’s woks, so I found one that mostly met López-Alt’s specifications: 14 inches, carbon steel, flat bottom, and two handles; it was 1.5 millimeters rather than 2 millimeters thick, but I felt it was close enough. Full disclosure: I’d tried to order a slightly more compliant wok previously from a specialty store in San Francisco and the order never showed up, so I decided to go with Amazon on this one, mostly just to ensure that it’d actually arrive quickly on my doorstep. I do plan to get a fully-Kenji-approved wok down the line, but for now, I’m thrilled with the Joyce Chen.
First impressions
When my new wok arrived, it was a dull factory gray with a weird, sticky film all over it. I read a number of articles—including a section of López-Alt’s book—about how important it is to season woks and how to do it. Culling info from a number of sources, I came to the following process. First, I rinsed down the wok with warm water and soap, drying it fully; then, I covered the wooden handles with foil, so as not to scorch them. I turned on the burner of my gas stove to full blast and set the wok on it in order to start cooking off the residue oils from production (which released an incredible amount of vapor and made my apartment immediately smell insane, so make sure to open a window for this step). After thoroughly heating the whole wok, I observed as the monotonous gray shifted to a brilliant rainbow of bronze and silvers, indicating that the dreary-looking original wok was transforming into a seasoned masterpiece. I let it cool for a bit, and then poured some warm water over it to cool it down, drying it before I gave it a good wipedown with grapeseed oil. Then, it was ready to go.
Seasoning the wok was pretty easy, and brought me a great sense of accomplishment. Unlike cast iron cookware, which you have to season carefully and then monitor and maintain over time, the wok is more or less good to go for a long time after this process (at least from what I can tell). It may seem like a lot to get into, but it’s worth it, both from a cooking standpoint (it basically becomes non-stick) and aesthetic one (it looks pretty beautiful when you’re done). Really, seasoning this wok took less than half an hour, and gave me an incredible cooking tool that I’ll use for years.
Cooking with the wok
The following weekend, I cooked a number of dishes in the wok, mostly out of the incredible cookbook The Vegan Chinese Kitchen by Hannah Che, which I’d gotten as a gift over the holidays. Among other things, I used the work to make a fabulous oyster mushroom and snow pea dish, which first required me to cook garlic, ginger, and scallions in some Sichuan peppercorn oil I’d made. As promised, the ingredients sizzled in the spicy oil and eventually became aromatic; then, I threw in a bunch of awesome mushrooms I’d found at the local Asian supermarket. The wok seared and caramelized the mushrooms to perfection before I dumped in the snap peas, which quickly cooked through and absorbed the delicious flavors. It was all finished in a delightful, rich sauce of cooked-down Shaoxing wine.
A few days later, I wanted to try a more basic stir fry with more ingredients, so I did a similar but freestyled dish with broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, garlic, ginger, and a sauce of soy, black vinegar, and a little sugar. Using the wok is a learning curve, and something I’d learned from the food I’d made over the weekend is that you cannot be afraid to cook at high heat. At first, I was too reticent in cooking this dish, doing a medium-low temp, and it was taking forever; I turned it up to medium-high, and started to hear that familiar sizzle and started to see the sexy caramelization I wanted. Yum.
Another takeaway is that mise en place is more important for cooking with a wok, because things happen very quickly when you’re cooking at home over super-high heat. A pasta sauce or a stew can be more forgiving if you forgot to chop the onions or measure spices in advance, because it’s jamming for a long time, but with a wok, it can be a matter of seconds before something overcooks or burns. I certainly haven’t mastered it, but it has made me tighten up my prep game a bit.
TL;DR: Getting a good wok is like having a baby (based on what I’ve seen from TV): It requires extra care compared to going without, but ultimately provides a rewarding life (or cooking) experience. The Joyce Chen 14-inch flat-bottom wok is the perfect affordable “nice wok,” and will put in the work if you’re willing to go the extra mile to season and maintain it properly. Sure, if you want to keep running your Target wok and turning out subpar world cuisine, you definitely can. But if you’re serious about getting a good wok and caring for it, this is a wonderful place to start.
Find the Joyce Chen wok at Amazon.
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