Help me wok.

Esh

So, for Christmas my mom bought me a pretty nice electric wok. Problem is, all the recipes I see for it are for large (3-4 people) portions. Does anyone have any handy recipes for one or two? I'm not vegetarian at all, but I do love some tofu, so anything you suggest will be fine.

Just don't mention mushrooms, broccoli, or cauliflower.

The second question is, how much oil should I put in the wok for such small portions? I tried making some food earlier and while it worked, I kinda overcooked everything and oil was flying everywhere when I put the meat in. I think I overused the teriyaki sauce as well, because everything was a nice dark brown/black color. I'm pretty much useless in a kitchen, so talking to me like I know nothing about cooking is just fine.

Thanks!

wogi

As far as portions go - be prepared to have left overs. Most recipes that work well in a wok work beautifully reheated. I hardly ever use my wok for just one or two meals. I have a decent sized wok, so I cook for a week with it.

You never need much oil. In a wok, a little oil goes a long way, always put less than you think you'll need, you can always add more later, same goes for sauces, add just enough to coat everything, there shouldn't be much sauce left in the pan when you're done.

Keep everything moving too. Once it touches the pan it should never be at rest for more than a minute or so. Oil will splatter, just keep things moving around and it will be fine.

Stir fry meals work best with super intense heat for short periods of time. Really, what you throw in there is up to you. Whatever sounds good probably will be. Take a look at the recipes as kind of a starting place and work from there. If you only want to make a little, just cut the portions in half. Once you get a feel for what you like, I would really recommend just making the full portion and storing the rest. You can usually keep foods for a week or so, but they hardly last that long around me.

Esh

wogi wrote: »

As far as portions go - be prepared to have left overs. Most recipes that work well in a wok work beautifully reheated. I hardly ever use my wok for just one or two meals. I have a decent sized wok, so I cook for a week with it.

You never need much oil. In a wok, a little oil goes a long way, always put less than you think you'll need, you can always add more later, same goes for sauces, add just enough to coat everything, there shouldn't be much sauce left in the pan when you're done.

Keep everything moving too. Once it touches the pan it should never be at rest for more than a minute or so. Oil will splatter, just keep things moving around and it will be fine.

Stir fry meals work best with super intense heat for short periods of time. Really, what you throw in there is up to you. Whatever sounds good probably will be. Take a look at the recipes as kind of a starting place and work from there. If you only want to make a little, just cut the portions in half. Once you get a feel for what you like, I would really recommend just making the full portion and storing the rest. You can usually keep foods for a week or so, but they hardly last that long around me.

Meat should generally go in for a little first right, then add the veggies towards the end?

How much peanut oil is enough? A couple tablespoons? Also, basically any kind of sauce I want will work in the wok?

zilo

The oil is not to add flavor, it's to coat the bottom of the wok. I put in a "little bit" and swish it around until it coats the part of the wok where the food goes. A couple tablespoons is overkill unless your wok is enormous.

Wok cooking is an exercise in experimentation. I have two recipes- "stuff with chicken" and "stuff with beef". I'll usually fry about .5 to .75lb of meat, cut into bite-size pieces. Figuring out when the meat is done requires some experience. Beef can be consumed rare, chicken can't- so when in doubt with chicken, cook it some more. Once the meat is mostly cooked I'll add some sauce, usually teryaki. Kikkomen makes a good one but it's pretty salty. I cut that by adding some black pepper and ginger. I like thick sauce so I put in a bunch (1/3 cup or more) and let it cook down a bit while it mixes with the meat on a medium heat.

I don't add veggies often but when I do it's usually just a bit of bell pepper. The hardest part about cooking with a wok is timing things so that the rice is done at the same time as everything else. I use the microwaveable rice-in-a-bag now but a good rice cooker would be much better.

Al_wat

You can make fried rice meals like they do in chinese food places pretty easily.

Try checking youtube videos for different recipes - thats how I learned how to cook a lot of stuff. It helps seeing how it is actually cooked instead of just reading a bunch of stuff.