The other night we joined @feedmybeast and family for dinner at Lucky Dragon and I got pushed over the edge. I've wanted to try high temp wok cooking for a while but was a little intimidated by cooking at such high temps. Those woks fired by high pressure propane cookers look pretty intense, I figured I might just incinerate dinner.
Forging ahead with my recent experience of briquette-fueled searing, I went to Crestview Market and got my cheap steel wok, steel spatula (perfectly contoured to the wok) and got to work. I washed it and baked it in the oven for a few hours. Far from seasoned, I had to start somewhere. I decided on veggie and pork fried rice. Simple seasoning: pork marinated in soy, sesame oil, Sriracha, ginger and garlic, veggies chopped, a couple eggs and cold cooked basmati rice all ready for sequential frying - in that order. To the outdoors!
Fuel: a 3.3 lb bag of Matchlight. And to all the Matchlight haters, if this stuff is fully ignited, there's no residual fuel. At greater than 1,000°F while glowing, if you think you're tasting lighter fluid, you're wrong. After this was lit, I placed my wok holder (came with the oven) and wok atop the fire and let it warm up with the Matchlight (see action shots).
And that's it. My pan went from an initial 800°F (using an IR thermometer) when I dumped the pork and marinade in for about a minute, removed it and then waited until the pan recovered to about 500°F before the next ingredients went in. One veggie after another until the rice. My only disappointment is the recovery from food being dumped out to 500°F took too long. Next time, I'll use briquettes to start the fire and then short pieces of oak/ash to maintain a live fire the entire cook, this should make the recovery a little faster.
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