Wokking Technique or How To Improve Your Hot Wokking Action!

[thorfinn]

It occurs to me that I forgot to actually discuss wokking technique. The thing with a wok is that it's a slice off a sphere... Don't get one of those flat bottomed ones. They work, but the flat bottom gets in the way. You'll see why a bit later on. Okay.

Let's start with the wok-stirrer. Firstly, you grip it much like you grip a tennis racket. Hold the stirrer out horizontally in front of you, with the flippy bit pointing up. Your three little fingers should be curled around the bottom of the stirrer, gripping it. Then, curl your palm inwards, so your entire thumb (all the way to the base where it joins your wrist) is flat, and paralleling the stirrer grip over the little fingers, then bending down and pressing the stirrer with the pad of your thumb. The forefinger should naturally at this point be curling below the stirrer, so the stirrer is pressed into the inside of the first joint of the forefinger by the pad of the thumb.

That's the proper wok-stirrer grip. It's actually quite a flexible but strong grip... If you hold your thumb perfectly steady, and curl your forefinger inwards, simultaneously loosening off the little fingers slowly, you will notice the stirrer can be swung in almost a ninety degree arc, without really losing strength of grip on the stirrer. In cooking, I find I'll use about forty-five degrees of that freedom as I'm shoving stuff around the wok. Fiddle with this grip a bit, until it feels reasonable in your hand. Wave it around, practice batting invisible objects with it... or visible objects, possibly including humans, if so inclined. ;-) Oh, and keep your wrist steady. You don't need to turn your wrist at all. You want your hand to be an extension of your forearm. Any flexing of the stirrer that needs to be done, you can do at your fingertips, and by rotating your whole forearm, not the wrist.

Back to the wok... So, you've dumped a bunch of stuff into your wok. Now what? Now, the first thing you do, is spread the ingredients as thinly as possible around the wok, starting by using the flat bottom of the stirrer, and pressing into the centre of the wok, and smooshing up and out. Do this quickly around the entire circle of the wok, and you should now have the ingredients spread up and around the wok. As you proceed around the wok, you'll probably find that you'll use the forearm rotation and fingertip motions a reasonable amount.

The next stage of the sequence is to dig stuff back into the middle... At this point, return to the original grip as described, because we're about to use the stirrer like a shovel. Just dig from the edge of the ingredients, down into the centre. When you hit the centre with the stirrer plate, stop, then turn your forearm out, and turn your elbow in. This should cause the stirrer plate to do a smallish 180 degree circle-flip, thus mixing the ingredients around. This works fine for the quarter circle where your arm is, but doesn't work for the rest of the wok. For that, you just pull the ingredients down into the middle, then go back to the quarter circle and dig again to mix. Now go back to the first step, and smoosh everything out again...

That's the process for stirring and turning over the entire contents of a wok. When practised, turning over the entire contents of a wok should take maybe ten or twenty seconds. Don't try it that fast initially, stuff will go everywhere. Notice that the dig and flip motion is a lot easier on a round bottomed wok, whilst a flat bottomed one will have "clunk" points, so you can't get a smooth dig and flip action... and it'll be near impossible to smoosh and flatten things up the side of a flat bottomed wok.

Now, why are we doing this at all? Well, as you're doing the smoosh, dig and flip circuit, you can pay attention to putting the less cooked pieces (usually the bigger bits) towards the bottom of the mix, thus ensuring a more even cooking process, and ensuring that everything comes out cooked at the same time. That's all for now!

However, the next time I post on cooking, I'm thinking of talking about noodles, the various kinds, and what can be done with them... Suggestions for other topics and any questions are definitely welcome, and if people have a specific noodle type preference, please say, because the topic of noodles is way too big to cover in just one post.

Comments

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Largely because of your previous post I put my heavy iron frypan aside tonight and pulled out my old iron wok. It is a bit thinner than I would like but it was really great to cook with -- much easier than the frypan in a number of ways. The only downside is that the handles get so damn hot I have to keep an oven mit on one hand while turning over the veges.

Hmmm... I have a feeling my frypan is looking at an early retirement.

But I must find a heavier wok and a lid. A lid would be very good. One of those spatula thingies would be nice too -- I used a wooden spoon. Wonder if there are any good Chinese cooking-implement shop places (could I say that any more awkwardly?) around here (Sunshine Coast, QLD).

On the description of your suggestion for holding the wok-stirrer: a picture would convey oodles more than the description. I kept seeing in my mind that skit where Lucille Ball is given a verbal description of how to stand and hold a golf club and the humorous contortions she goes thru. :)

I think noodles are actually part of an evil plan to make people embarrass themselves while attempting to eat the impossible.