BabishCarbon Steel Flat Bottom Wok and Stir Fry Pan, 14-Inch

The media could not be loaded. What have you know about cooking with a skillet throw it out the window. I've made Asian dishes before however a wok is a different beast. To season wipe down the wok with hot soapy water. Then dry with a paper towel or hand towel. Next wet a paper towel with your choice of cooking oil being somewhat conservative. For me I used truffle infused olive oil. Then lightly coat the inside and outside of the wok with the oiled paper towel /towel. Then take a clean unused hand towel or paper towel and rub around the inside and outside of the wok. This is to absorb any excess or oil and make your seasoning process easier and better. You really only want a light easy coat of oil. Once this is done do you want to get your flame going. If you don't have a huge wok gas burner and just a normal house hold gas burner then I suggest taking the safety flame spreaders off the biggest burner and manually light the gas with a lighter. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN OR MELT YOUR KITCHEN CABINETS. Anywho If you do this you will achieve a similar style of flame that they use in restaurants and in Asia. However if you have a Viking gas stove top like I do. Removing the bottom safety (the one with multiple holes gas normally comes out of) works and I can ignite the gas however it confuses the safety mechanism and the ignitor just fires 24/7. Obviously I don't want to ruin my stove top so I just used the range as intended from the store with both safety's things in place(burner assembly)... I did tweak this later on... When seasoning AKA all the oil is applied all the excess is removed, You want to get the entire walk including the sides as hot as physically possible. If you read the instructions it will say to get it smoking. This is true however even if it starts smoking you really want it the carbon steel to turn blue all the way around. Or as many blue spots as physically possible. I say this typically takes around 30 minutes. At 30 minutes take a break or whenever you feel like taking a break and inspect your wok. If you're not happy with the amount of blue then follow these instructions. Repeat the oiling process. For me I used sesame oil the second time around. Apply at the same way you did the first time. Mind you I did not clean or wipe down the wok after the first seasoning. This is because I did not cook with it and technically it's not dirty. However I did let it fully cool down to room temperature before starting again. This time I modified *** MODIFICATION *** the burner. I only took off the top piece. This allowed at least two big flames on my burner to reach the front and back side of my wok. I follow the same steps however this time I removed the handle from the wok by twisting off the eye hook. I then wore oven mitts. And put that sucker as close to that freaking flame as I physically could. I rotated around on each of its sides multiple times for about 45 minutes. I even turned it upside down and got around the edges in the big ass fire. By the time I was done majority of the outside had tons of bluing. The outer inside did as well. I thought I did a pretty good job too. So yup that's it review finished. Nope. Next is cooking with it. And if you cook with it right it will blue more infinitely. Typically with a skillet you throw in some cooking oil or butter, let that heat up then throw in fresh garlic. They're right there is typically how most meals made with a skillet start. Because you don't put garlic in everything are you really cooking. I tried to do this with the wok, The garlic burned within 6 seconds. I immediately took my metal spoon and scraped it into the sink. There's still some bits left in the wok but that's fine. All right time to try again. I did not put as much oil in to start. However once my oil was heated up a good amount I just threw in all the beef I had lying I just threw in 4 - 2" by 2" chunks of beef (not grounded) add about 2 and 1/2 extra pounds of this beef that I was planning on cooking with. I started with four pieces to stir fry as a test to make sure I don't waste all my food. Anyway back to cooking. Immediately threw in four of those beef cubes. Once I started cooking I instantly threw in garlic. Once that was done I constantly was stiring with my metal spoon & moving the wok back and forth for probably 2 to 3 minutes. I did not try doing the flipping my food to mix it technique as I've never done it and chances are on my food's going to end up on the ground. I then started adding onion, Ginger & bell peppers. Make sure these are not tiny and about an inch long and a centimeter wide. That's minimum. Like I said before the garlic that stuff burns very fast. About 2 to 3 minutes of stiring that stuff I added the rest of my marinade, soy sauce & crush red pepper. Stired again 2-3 min. Then I added some brown sugar. And boom I was done. I want to go try it and it was delicious. Perfectly cooked medium rare. Now I had two more pounds to make. For my sake I used random chunks of beef and not steak so it was a little chewy and I trimmed it down and cut it smaller and smaller and the rest of my trials. However that's not necessarily part of this review. All right back to the review. By the time I was done emptying my pan on the first actual time cooking a large chunk of food. I had the burner turned off and the walk moved to a different section of the stove. It had already cooled down when I came back. And all the grit and grime from cooking was caked on there. I thought nothing of it and restarted the same process to cook again. By the time the wok was heated up again, adding oil then beef etc all the great grime just disappeared. And it was non-stick. You will get rid of that grain grime when you're finally done using it for that cooking session. To get rid of it as soon as you're done making your last portions turn on your kitchen sink to hot and wait till it's steaming coming out. Also while you're waiting for this to get hot take your metal spoon and just scrape the inside of your walk where the bigger bigger chunks are. It'll just collect on your spoon. Now take your somewhat hot wok To the sink and fill it with steaming hot water. ( If the water is not hot and the walk is still super hot it will warp the so and any pan for that matter.. it's not fixable) once you feel it with hot water just scrape again with your spoon on the big chunks. I did this on the inside and outside for spots that are super sticky. It only took maybe like 45 seconds. After that's done take a towel or paper towel and dry the wok. Then put it on the stove top to verify that it's dry and turn on a burner. This will remove any excess water or moisture. After that is done. Apply a very very small amount of oil to the inside and outside of the wok. Now if you're me I then turned on the burner to high heat just like I did when I seasoned it. I waited until it was smoking turned off the burner and let it cool down the room temperature before putting it back in the cupboard. No I don't know if you have to heat it back up after oiling but I did anyway because this barely has any season on it. And from what I know from cast iron skillets and cooking with seasonings baked into your skillet. The more the merrier. I think maybe after 5 to 6 times of doing it this way maybe you don't have to heat up every time. I would still though at minimum get it hot enough to try and get some of the excess oil to kind of dissipate or find better holes to hide in. Anywho that's my review is my first time ever using a wok and it went great.

We got our wok yesterday, and we went to work to season it for cooking Chinese stir-fry today. Everything went smoothly, and the food took on the traditional "wok-hei" smoky flavor typical of. Chinese cooking!Before you jump in to do your first stir-fry, just let me pre-warn you that it is an ABSOLUTE MUST to season your wok correctly. The instructions that came in the box were less than desirable, because it is the way westerners season cast-iron frying pans. So let me tell you the steps to do it the correct way!!(1) Take the pan out of the packaging and immediately go to work using Soft-scrub and steel wool. I mean "work" with the heaviest elbow grease possible, put your force into it, and scrub the heck out of it to take away the layer of factory provided fake seasoning that comes with the wok to keep it from going rusty in storage and transit. Rinse and dry it thoroughly with a towel. Count on doing this no less than 5-6 times.(2) Put the wok on top of your stove, turn on low heat to make sure all moisture is evaporated. It is desirable to use a gas stove, but if all you have is an electric stovetop or an induction stove, it works just as fine in the seasoning process. I have a glass top electric oven, and it worked just fine.(3) After the wok is thoroughly dry with your low heat on stove-top. Put in a 1/2 cup of oil with high smoke-point. Open your windows around the house and turn on your exhaust fan on high.Turn the Stove-top heat to max heat to heat up the oil.(4) Use your Chinese wok-spatulato to coat the upper side of your wok with the hot oil. Make sure all inside surface of the wok is coated with hot oil.(5) At some point the oil inside your wok is going to get so hot that the oil self-ignite. Let that burn with the flame inside your wok for 30+45+ seconds, and use a large pot-lid to cover the flame in the wok to snuff out the flame. Let the wok continue to sit on the hot stove top for another 2-3+ minutes.(6) Remove the pot lid and turn off the heat to your stove. What you will see is a bubbly charred surface of teflon-like plastic layer covering you wok on the inside surface. Remove this layer using your Chinese spatula with scraping action all over the inside of the wok to totally remove this layer of charred plastic.(7) After the wok cools off, wash the inside surface of the wok with Soft-scrub and steel-wool. Go to work at it and make sure all the charred plastic layer is removed and you're seeing the bare metal surface of the wok(8) Dry your wok thoroughly with a towel and place it on your stove top in medium heat. Put in a 1/3 cup of high smoke point oil and heat it up. Put in your sliced/chopped onion and start stir-frying. Use the Chinese spatula to lift the cooked onion inside the wok to coat the inside surface of the wok. Make sure the entire inside surface is coated with oil.(9) Scoop out your caramelized onion and you have a perfectly seasoned wok. I recommend that for the first handful times you cook with your wok, use plenty of oil! Try frying an over easy egg, and you'll notice how easily the egg flips over, and nothing sticks to your wok.(10) With a well-seaaoned wok, you only need to wash your wok with a sponge and water since nothing sticks to your wok (DO NOT USE SOAP or STIFF SCOURING PADS or STEEL-WOOL EVER). Always dry your wok thoroughly with a towel after washing, place it back on your stove top in low heat to thoroughly dry and evaporated any trapped moisture that you don't see. Then coat the entire inside surface of your wok with a very, very, light layer of oil. Wipe off excess oil with paper towel!! Then, store the wok as you would store a cast iron frying pan.This wok will give you decades of service with no problem if you take care to initially season your wok as I instructed, clean it properly after use with no soap, and store it with a light coat of oil!!So all you people who complain that your wok is not working properly, is rusty, or whatever, you did not do the proper steps to properly season your wok.

Hard working every day use and abuse and this wok doesn’t quit. I’ve tried beating it, burning it, neglecting it, and it just keeps on cooking without any hassles. Would buy again but I don’t see mine ever dying on me.