The Cooking of Canton

Its name comes from the port city of Canton, capital of Kwangtung province in southeastern China. Of all the styles of Chinese cooking, Cantonese food is probably the most familiar to Americans.

From Canton came waves of immigrants in the 19th century, who introduced Chinese cooking to the United States. Many of the Chinese restaurants that first opened in America served not what they thought was best, but what they thought would appeal most to the local clientele - which was basic, simple Cantonese food, often enjoyed as much for its low price as its taste appeal.

With the popularity of more regional Chinese restaurants in the United States, Cantonese food has lost some of its appeal. It is time to think beyond chop suey and chow mein and explore the many delicious Cantonese dishes which show the greatest variety and depth of any of the regional Chinese cuisines.

Southeastern China has an unusual abundance of good food to cook. Its moist, tropical climate provides a long growing season for rice, vegetables and fruits, and the 1,000 mile coastline is rich with fish and shellfish. Fresh ingredients need few frills: Cantonese food is light and generally mild, with the emphasis on pure natural flavors.

Other influences upon the cooking of Canton through the centuries is from migrations from northern China during times of political turmoil, and also by commerce with the Portuguese, Dutch and other Western traders who first established contact with the Chinese, introducing foods such as peanuts, corn, tomatoes and white potatoes.

World-wide, Cantonese cooks have become popular for their wide variety of stir-fried dishes and for their expertise in preparing a multitude of snack foods. from fried noodles to steamed dim sum. Their favorite seasonings include Black Bean Sauce, Oyster Sauce and Lobster Sauce.

Wok this Way! (Part 4 of 5) Cleaning and Caring for Your Wok

Wok this Way! (Part 4 of 5) Cleaning and Caring for Your Wok
By Helen Fan

Non-stick woks do not require seasoning, and come with simple cleaning instructions from the manufacturers, while steel carbon and iron woks require seasoning. Cleaning a seasoned wok is a lot different than a non-stick wok, and this is what we will cover here.

We will start with an important reminder: Do NOT use a steel wool scouring pad (or any abrasive product) on a seasoned wok, EVER! It will waste all the effort you put forth in seasoning your wok, and will require you to re-season it again.

A freshly seasoned wok will need some extra tender-loving-care. Immediately after cooking each dish, rinse the wok with plain hot water only. It is important to not use any other cleaning product to avoid damaging the seasoning. Often, there will be some bits and pieces of food particles stuck on the surface of a freshly seasoned wok. To remove them, gently lift them off with a bamboo brush (highly recommended), or a non-metallic scrubber. Then rinse the wok once more with plain hot water. To dry the wok, instead of wiping it dry, put the wet wok on the stove and set it on high heat. Heat the wok until a faint smoke arises from the bottom, then either let it cool and store it away, or continue to cook another dish. It is a common practice for chefs in Chinese restaurants to immediately put the wok back on the stove, pour hot water into the wok, scrub it quickly with a bamboo brush, dump out the water, and then place the wok back on the hot stove while he/she prepares another dish. By the time he/she is ready to cook the next dish, the wok is already hot, dry, and primed to go. It takes literally seconds to go through the drill once you get some practice. This process allows the traces of grease from the last dish to settle into the carbon steel's pores, further seasoning the wok.

After you are finished cooking a meal, cleaning the wok, and ready to put the wok away, it is always a good practice to apply another thin coat of cooking oil. Store it in a dry, airy spot until you use it again (hopefully, very soon). Once the wok is well-seasoned, it becomes self-sufficient, and will not require re-coating again. As mentioned before, It takes time, care, and regular use before a wok develops a patina, where the wok becomes virtually non-stick, and the dishes impart that elusive “wok hay”. In addition, clean-up and care will be easy, requiring little time and effort, often only involves rinsing it with plain hot water and little scrubbing, as none of the food should stick to the wok.

As the black patina develops from frequent repeated use, it will also appear on the bottom exterior. It is also a layer of carbon from cooking at a high heat. In a household kitchen, where the stove does not reach as high a temperature as it does in a restaurant, this is actually a good thing. It helps conduct the heat faster, concentrates the heat to the bottom of the wok, and brings the wok to an even higher temperature. A nice bonus is that it also enhances the flavor of the dish. So, there is no need to scrub the exterior of the wok, either. Just a simple hot water rinse after cooking should be enough.

In Part 5, we'll talk about all the nice little friends that you can get along with your wok, the accessories.

Helen Fan grew up in a family that has owned various Asian restaurants all over North America, from Vancouver (Canada), Houston (Texas), Decatur (Illinois), to Chicago (Illinois). She, and the rest of the Fan family are now sharing their decades of knowledge on the art of Chinese cuisine at http://www.chinesehomecooking.com/

You can read more of our articles at

http://www.ChineseHomeCooking.Com/resources/resources.htm

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Wok this Way! (Part 3 of 5) Seasoning Your New Wok

By Helen Fan

Seasoning is the most important thing you can do to your wok. Only carbon steel and iron woks need to be seasoned. The purpose of seasoning is to remove the manufacturer's protective coating and coat it with a thin layer of oil. This creates a smooth cooking surface which enables food to shift and glide easily, thus preventing your food from sticking, discoloring, and picking up a metallic taste.

The initial step is to scrub it thoroughly. Take a steel wool scouring pad and scrub both the inside and outside of the wok with soap. This will remove the anti-rust coating that comes with most woks. If your new wok comes with some rust spots, don't worry. It is completely normal for unseasoned woks to develop some minor rust. Just make sure that you scrub out the rust before you move on. Rinse it thoroughly with hot water. Then, to make sure that you remove all the coating, set the wok on the stove, fill it with water, and boil it for 5 to 10 minutes to dissolve the remaining coating. Pour out the water and scrub the surface again with steel wool scouring pad and soap. New woks may cause a slight metallic taste to the first two or three dishes that are cooked in it, but after that, the metallic taste will disappear.

Reminder: the steel wool scouring pad is only to be used in this initial step prior to seasoning your new wok. Do NOT use a steel wool scouring pad on a seasoned wok, EVER! It will waste all the effort you put forth in seasoning your wok, and will require you to re-season it again.

Next, place the wok on the stove over high heat. You're ready for the next step when you sprinkle a few drops of water into the wok and they start to dance around the bottom. Then, roll up a few sheets of paper towel, or use a piece of cloth, and dip it in cooking oil. Peanut oil or corn oil are preferred because of their high smoking point, thus minimizing smoke fumes when you are seasoning the wok.. Naturally, turning on your stove top vent will help reduce the fumes, too. Using a pair of long wooden chopsticks, or tongs, wipe the soaked paper towel over the entire inner surface of the wok. Reduce the heat down to low, and let the wok sit for 15 minutes. This allows the wok to absorb the oil. If the surface begins to dry off, then wipe the wok again with the soaked paper towel. You want the wok to obtain a thin film of oil when it's seasoned. The bottom of the wok should be slightly brown. Repeat the above steps two more time, and the bottom should darken even more. Over time, the entire wok will turn black (that's good). Now the wok is ready to go.

But we're not nearly done. Ever wonder why Chinese restaurant dishes produce that mouth-watering aroma when they are served on your table? And ever wonder why you can't quite match that flagrant flavor when you try to cook Chinese food at home? They come from cooking food on an almost impervious shiny black coating in a well-seasoned wok. That black coating is called “patina”, which is essentially harmless carbon residue from cooking in a wok repeatedly on high heat. A well-seasoned wok cooking at a high heat will impart what Chinese chefs lovingly call “wok hay”. Its literal translation is “breath of wok”. Wok hay is so revered in Chinese culinary tradition that in China , especially in the Canton region (south), when a customer is served stir fry dish without wok hay, it is considered an insult or bad luck.

It takes time, care, and regular use before a wok develops a patina. There are no shortcuts. But having patina on your wok is still not enough produce wok hay on your dishes. It is imperative that you heat the wok on high heat to the point where you see some faint smoke coming from the bottom before you add cold cooking oil. The cold cooking oil cools down the wok slightly, and makes the food taste tenderer once it's done. If the wok is not hot enough, or cold (gasp!) when you pour in the cooking oil, the ingredients will stick to the wok (even with the patina) and inevitably burn, also leaving the ingredients raw inside. Not to mention you lose that coveted “wok hay”.

In Part 4, we will talk about cleaning and caring for you wok.

Helen Fan grew up in a family that has owned various Asian restaurants all over North America, from Vancouver (Canada), Houston (Texas), Decatur (Illinois), to Chicago (Illinois). She, and the rest of the Fan family are now sharing their decades of knowledge on the art of Chinese cuisine at http://www.chinesehomecooking.com/
You can read more of our articles at http://www.ChineseHomeCooking.Com/resources/resources.htm
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Chinese Chili Prawns And Rice

By Jon C

This dish involves a delicious combination of chilli prawns and rice. Either raw or pre-cooked prawns can be used. Though raw prawns are better for absorbing flavour from the marinade. The end result is very similar to fried rice, though a wok is not required.

Quantities shall not be listed in the recipe as I am an adhoc chef and just add roughly what I think is best. When you try this recipe, become an artist and add your own .

Ingredients

Prawn Marinade:
ginger
garlic
chili (powder, flakes or fresh)
sesame oil
light soya sauce

For the rest:
rice
water
onion
mushrooms
sweetcorn
peas
Bouillon vegetable stock
spring onion

Instructions

Prawn Marinade
Chop the ginger, garlic and chilli (if fresh) finely. Mix
this with the sesame oil, light soya sauce and ground black pepper.
Mix the
prawns in the marinade and set aside in a fridge for a few hours. If I'm
planning on serving lunch at 12pm, I'll normally prepare the beef at 9am.

Cooking

Rinse the rice in the rice cooker a few times, and fill with water until there's about a finger nail's breadth of water above the top of the rice. Add about half a teaspoon of vegetable stock to the rice, Chop the onion and mushrooms into small pieces. Add all the vegetables (apart from the spring onion) to the rice. Add the marinaded prawns to the rice. Mix everything up. Turn on the rice cooker start cooking. Chop up
the spring onion.

When the food is cooked (this normally takes about 30 minutes), turn off the rice cooker, add the chopped spring onion, and give it all another good stir.

I am Jon C, the head chef at http://www.dawjee.com/ I try to provide my staff with healthy meals using our limited cooking resources, which consists of a rice cooker, combination microwave oven and egg steamer.
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Wok this Way! (Part 2 of 5) Selecting a Wok

Wok this Way! (Part 2 of 5) Selecting a Wok
By Helen Fan

As mentioned in Part 1 of the series, woks come in different sizes ranging from 10 to 32 inches in diameter, but a wok that's 11 to 14 inches in diameter should suffice for use in a household kitchen.

Woks come in 2 different bottoms, the traditional round-bottomed woks, and the “westernized” flat-bottomed woks. Both have their advantages, but the're reasons that the traditional wok lasted thousands of years in Chinese kitchens. The flat-bottomed woks do not heat as evenly. The flattened area creates a little angle around the bottom that makes it harder to manipulate your cooking utensil. Food may get caught in this area, becoming overcooked or even burnt due to the lack of movement. This also could present a problem when you clean it afterwards. That little angle also increases the likelihood that you will accidentally scratch the wok while stir frying. The flat-bottomed woks were designed for better balance on flat American stovetops, especially the electric stove. But there is a simple solution for that. You can purchase a “wok ring” that you put on the stovetop, and sit the wok over it for balance. We will go through that in more detail in Part 5, “Wok accessories”.

A wok is generally made of iron, copper, carbon steel, or aluminum. Carbon steel and aluminum are the better ones because of their superior heat conductivity, but the general consensus is that carbon steel is, by far, the best material for a wok. Carbon steel is the most porous, and when exposed to high heat, the pores open up to absorb the cooking oil, contributing to developing the "patina", and then the elusive "wok hay" (covered in Part 3). If you go around Chinese restaurants and ask their chefs the kind of woks they use, an overwhelming majority will swear by carbon steel woks. The best part is that carbon steel woks are relatively inexpensive to buy. There is an old adage that says “you get what you pay for”. This is definitely not the case for woks.

There are now stainless-steel versions of the wok, although it is generally not recommended. Stainless-steel is not a good heat conductor, which defeats the purpose of Chinese cuisine that relies heavily on quick cooking on high heat. They sure look nice, but would you rather have a nice looking wok, or a taste bud-tickling, mouth-watering gourmet dish? The answer should be obvious. Woks with non-stick coatings are not desirable, either. They all inevitably scratch and food gets stuck to the metal, ruining the taste, smell, presentation of the dishes, not to mention the extra effort needed in cleaning the wok. In addition, the high heat required for Chinese cooking may eventually damage the non-stick coating. A well-seasoned wok will last forever, where as a non-stick wok will inevitably need a replacement over time.

There is an enamel-lined version where there are no reactions between the metal and the food, which makes it a nice alternative. But, if a steel carbon wok is seasoned well (covered in Part 3), it will become virtually non-stick, and will work better than any other versions out there. If you must buy one with a non-stick surface, we recommend purchasing a hard-anodized, or heavy-gauged aluminum wok, but the downside of that is that they are very expensive. Why spend a big wad of money on an expensive wok when you can get one that will do a better job, at a fraction of a price, right?

The bottom line is, if you're serious about cooking Chinese food, and create dishes that taste authentically Chinese, pick a round-bottomed, carbon steel wok, and include a wok ring as an accessory (if necessary) to balance it on the stove.

In Part 3 of Wok this way! we'll cover the all important subject of “Seasoning” a new wok.

Helen Fan grew up in a family that has owned various Asian restaurants all over North America, from Vancouver (Canada), Houston (Texas), Decatur (Illinois), to Chicago (Illinois). She, and the rest of the Fan family are now sharing their decades of knowledge on the art of Chinese cuisine at http://www.chinesehomecooking.com/

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Basic Terms on Chinese Restaurant Menus

By Shauna Hanus

In today’s modern Chinese restaurants even a more traditional menu will come with English translations for many of the more common Chinese food terms. It is, however, always handy to have knowledge of some to the basic terms just in case you find yourself in need.

Here are eleven definitions that range from vegetables to duck for some of the more common items found in Chinese restaurants.

Choy = vegetable. Vegetables or Choy are found in many Chinese food dishes. This versatile ingredient can be found in stand alone dishes or accompanied by meat.

Dun = egg and is often found in dishes like Egg Foo Young where eggs or Dun are combined with a wide variety of accompaniments like rice, chicken, vegetables and bean sprouts.

Fon = rice and is most familiar in Fried Rice which comes with peas, carrots and pork or in sticky short grained white rice.

Gai = chicken and is a very adaptable ingredient to use in dishes like Cashew Chicken or Moo

Shu Chicken where the chicken is thin sliced and served with vegetables, plum sauce and a thin pancake.

Har = shrimp and can be found in Peking Shrimp which can sometimes still be found by its traditional name of Beijing Far Jue Har.

Mien = noodle and is a soft warm noodle served with chicken or pork and vegetables. The all too common chow mien noodle is a crunchy version of the original.

Moo ghoo = mushroom. Moo Ghoo Gai Pan, which means sliced chicken and mushrooms, is an easily found dish on most Chinese restaurant menus.

Op = duck. Op or duck is not as common as chicken or pork but is a delicacy that is worth tasting.

Pien = sliced, proper slicing is key to Chinese cooking.

Suen = sour

Tiem = sweet. Most often times you will see sweet and sour in the same dish such as Sweet and Sour Pork which contains pork, pineapple and green peppers in a sweet sauce.

Shauna Hanus is a gourmet cook who specializes in creating gourmet recipes. She has extensive experience cooking with easy to find grocery items to create delightful gourmet meals. She is also the publisher of a no cost bi-monthly gourmet newsletter. Her newsletter is always fun and informational packed with tips and trivia you can use everyday. Sign up for her newsletter and learn more about Gourmayeats

Club at http://www.gourmayeats.com/

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How to Cook Bok Choy

By Sarah Sandori

Long familiar to Chinese cooks, and to those who love Chinese food, bok choy is showing up in a wide variety of other types of dishes. You might find it spelled as "bak choi" or even "paak choi". Packing a nutritional wallop, it is also readily available the year around and is easy to prepare and cook. Here are some tips for eating it raw, zapping in the microwave as a side dish, and using it in a delicious stir fry.

Bok choy is a leafy vegetable belonging to the cabbage family. Long familiar to Chinese cooks, and to those who love Chinese food, it is showing up in a wide variety of other types of dishes. In fact, in any recipe in which you would normally use cabbage, you can probably use bok choy.

Nowadays bok choy can be found in most local supermarkets the year around. You might find it spelled as "bak choi" or even "paak choi," but "bok choy" seems to have become the preferred form in North America. Less commonly, it will go under a different name altogether; Chinese mustard cabbage, for example.

Just as with other green leafy vegetables, you should look for plants that are free of brown spots and that have firm stalks. The stalks themselves will be white in color; the leaves a darkish green. Bok choy is wonderfully nutritious. It is low in calories--about a dozen in the usual serving. It is also bursting with vitamins A and C. In fact, you could get nearly all of your recommended daily allowance of the latter in one serving of bok choy, and about a third of your RDA of the former.

Bok choy is an easy plant to prepare. Just give it a good rinsing first and you can munch it raw for a healthy afternoon snack, or chop it up and add it to a salad.

Need a quick side dish to a main meal? French-cut the stems into pieces and place them, with the leaves, in a casserole dish. Add a little water, cover the dish, and zap in the microwave for 2 minutes. Remove just the leaves from the dish and zap the stems for 3 more minutes. Season both the leaves and the stems with butter, salt and pepper and serve it all together.

The most common way to cook bok choy is to stir fry it, in a wok or a regular frying pan. Tear or cut the leaves and stems and place in the pan, add three tablespoons of water, and begin heating (use a medium setting) as you stir. Add some cooking oil into which you have strained some fresh garlic. Remove the leaves at the two-minute mark and continue stir frying the stalks for three additional minutes. After cooking, but before serving, drizzle a little soy sauce or sesame oil over the bok choy.

You can also include bok choy in a more robust stir fry, one that contains shrimp or chicken perhaps, along with bean sprouts, snow peas and other Chinese-restaurant type ingredients.

My main suggestion for bok choy? Experiment! Really, it's hard to go wrong with this versatile vegetable in the kitchen.

Sarah Sandori is the food and entertaining columnist for the Solid Gold Info Writers Consortium. Have you ever wanted to be able to exactly duplicate a favorite dish from a favorite restaurant? Check out Sarah's article where she reveals her secret source for the most mouth-watering restaurant recipes in America: http://www.solid-gold.info/most-wanted-recipes.html
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Lobster Recipes

By Steve Valentino

Lobsters are a seafood delicacy and are considered quite easy to cook. While they can be boiled or grilled, they are also delicious when just broiled or steamed. For cooking them, you need to get hold of a large stockpot and some good recipes to turn out exotic lobster dishes!

First you must ensure that you get a good quality lobster, preferably live. Then cook within prescribed time limits according to the weight of the lobster. For example, if boiling a lobster, it is recommended to boil it for 10 minutes for the first pound weight and 3 minutes each for subsequent pounds. So a 2-pound lobster needs to be boiled for 13 minutes. Cooking a lobster longer than the recommended times can make the meat too tough to eat. But when properly cooked, lobster meat is a creamy white and shells are bright red. There are many ways to prepare and garnish this seafood and one can get easily confused as to which recipe to pick up first. It is better to start with an easy recipe first and slowly go on to try a little complicated lobster dishes.

There is a lot of variety that can be churned out using lobsters, like lobster bisque, sauce, bakes, rolls, salads and stews. They can be made in American, Italian or Chinese flavors, depending on your taste. Some of the well known recipes of lobsters include chopped vegetable and lobster salad, grilled lobster with barbecue mayonnaise, lobster club sandwich, lobster pizza, lobster and white bean salad, lobster tails with Thai curry, hot and sour soup with lobster dumplings, lobster with coconut, corn and lemongrass. Whatever recipe you select, you can surely get succulent and delicious dish of lobsters.

It is very important to present the prepared lobster dish properly since the lobster is not the Adonis of the ocean. So its appearance should be made attractive and appealing enough to relish the dish and get the praise it deserves. To prepare lobster, you can get hold of a good lobster recipe book or search on the Internet to find numerous savoring recipes of lobsters!

Lobster provides detailed information on Lobster, Lobster Tails, Lobster Recipes, Maine Lobster and more. Lobster is affiliated with Salmon Fishing.

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Chinese Hot-and-Sour Soup

An authentic recipe both delicious and healthy. Combined here are healing and health-enhancing mushrooms and lily buds in an enticing broth.

5 oz boneless pork loin, cut into 1/4-inch-thick strips (2/3 cup)
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
4 small Chinese dried black mushrooms* (available in Asian markets)
12 small dried tree ear mushrooms*
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
12 dried lily buds* (sometimes called golden needles)
1/2 cup canned sliced bamboo shoots*, cut lengthwise into 1/8-inch-wide strips (from an 8-oz can)
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
2 tablespoons rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1 tablespoon light soy sauce*
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons peanut oil
4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
3 to 4 oz firm tofu (about a quarter of a block), rinsed and drained, then cut into 1/4-inch-thick strips
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil*
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground white pepper
2 tablespoons thinly sliced scallion greens
2 tablespoons fresh whole cilantro leaves

Toss pork with dark soy sauce in a bowl until pork is well coated.

Soak black and tree ear mushrooms in 3 cups boiling-hot water in another bowl (water should cover mushrooms), turning over black mushrooms occasionally, until softened, about 30 minutes. (Tree ears will expand significantly.)

Cut out and discard stems from black mushrooms, then squeeze excess liquid from caps into bowl and thinly slice caps. Remove tree ears from bowl, reserving liquid, and trim off any hard nubs. If large, cut tree ears into bite-size pieces.

Stir together 1/4 cup mushroom-soaking liquid (discard remainder) with cornstarch in a small bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile, soak lily buds in about 1 cup warm water until softened, about 20 minutes, then drain. Trim off tough tips of lily buds. Cut lily buds in half crosswise, then tear each half lengthwise into 2 or 3 shreds.

Cover bamboo shoots with cold water by 2 inches in a small saucepan, then bring just to a boil (to remove bitterness) and drain in a sieve.

Stir together vinegars, light soy sauce, sugar, and salt in another small bowl.

Heat a wok over high heat until a bead of water vaporizes within 1 to 2 seconds of contact. Pour peanut oil down side of wok, then swirl oil, tilting wok to coat sides. Add pork and stir-fry until meat just changes color, about 1 minute, then add black mushrooms, tree ears, lily buds and bamboo shoots and stir-fry 1 minute.

Add broth and bring to a boil, then add tofu.

Return to a boil and add vinegar mixture.

Stir cornstarch mixture, then add to broth and return to a boil, stirring. (Liquid will thicken.)

Reduce heat to moderate and simmer 1 minute.

Beat eggs with a fork and add a few drops of sesame oil. Add eggs to soup in a thin stream, stirring slowly in one direction with a spoon.

Stir in white pepper, then drizzle in remaining sesame oil and divide among 6 to 8 bowls. Sprinkle with scallions and cilantro before serving.

*Available at Asian food markets

Makes 6 to 8 first-course servings.

Wok this Way! (Part 1 of 5)

By Helen Fan

Introduction

Woks have been synonymous with Chinese cooking since the emergence of Chinese cuisine. They have been used for some 3000 years in China for a variety of cooking methods, including stir frying, boiling, and steaming. A wok is a large, thin-walled, round-bottomed, metal cooking pan, and shaped like a shallow bowl with handles. The addition of a wooden rack and cover transforms the wok into a steamer. Although woks come in sizes ranging from 10 to 32 inches in diameter, a wok that's 11 to 14 inches should suffice for use in a household kitchen.

With the increasing popularity of Chinese cuisine, there are now many “Westernized” versions of the wok. There is the addition of a metal ring, which is set on top of a gas or electric stove to hold the wok to prevent tipping. Some have a small flat bottom instead of the traditional round bottom, for the same reason. The new versions will get the job done, but thetraditionalal" large round-bottomed woks are still, by far, the preferred wok of choice.

Since the essence of Chinese cuisine is to achieve food tenderness through quick cooking to retain the natural taste, flavor, and color of the ingredients, the wok's ingenious unique design makes it a perfect fit in Chinese cooking.

Its bottom concentrates heat to achieve 2 objectives: 1) to direct the heat at the food, while sealing in the flavors and allowing food to be cooked evenly, and 2) to allow cooking food quickly with very little oil. The stir fry cooking technique shifts food around the wok quickly, coating it with oil during cooking, as opposed to using a flat frying pan where a lot more oil is required. Consequently, cooking with a wok is essential for a healthy diet. It also has curved sides to keep in food that is being tossed and flipped during stir frying. Food, when cooked, may be moved up the sloping side of the wok to stay warm without cooking further, while other food is cooked at the bottom. It is also ideal for deep frying as it requires less oil than any other kitchen cookware to do the job.

Next, in Part 2 of Wok this way!, we'll go over selecting a wok.

Helen Fan grew up in a family that has owned various Asian restaurants all over North America, from Vancouver (Canada), Houston (Texas), Decatur (Illinois), to Chicago (Illinois). She, and the rest of the Fan family are now sharing their decades of knowledge on the art of Chinese cuisine at http://www.chinesehomecooking.com/
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