Forgive me, for this is the long version of the story.
Two weekends ago, I decided that I wanted to have some fried food. So I filled my Carbon Steel WOK and give deep frying in a wok a try. Let me tell you, it’s almost as good if not better in some ways then those fancy basket fryers.
Here I am fying up some french fries. With the curved sides of the wok, you can drop the food in along the side, and it just slips right in without creating a splash. No burned hands!
I made some fried taliapia. I batter the fries too, just for something different. They turned out pretty good. Looks like a square meal to me! Fish, fries, tarter sauce, and Mt. Dew. I love my plates!
I even tried making some fried tortellini. These didn’t turn out so hot. The reviews where quite polar, either the people loved them or they hated them. Mine came out pretty dry – I think I may have over cooked them. I think they also needed more stuff inside to work well cooked up this way.
Anyway, yet more ‘not what the title of this blog is about’. Last weekend, I had gotten a beef roast. Pretty large, a couple of pounds. So I cut it into thirds. Two of the thirds I used as roasts. I had one in the crock pot this last week. Not my best work.. but I digress. One third I cut up into thin little strips like you get at a chinese resturaunt. I fried up a batch of these in my wok, as I love it, and it is always on the stove as it doesn’t fit in a drawer. Well, bits and pieces of the meat stuck. I had cleaned it too well from the deep frying sessions.
Well, tonight I cleaned it proper. You need to season a carbon steel wok the same you would cast iron to make it non-stick. Carbonize a very thin layer of fat/oil onto the surface. Well, because it had traces of that good beef fat, I set it on the stove tonight and cranked it up. You can see I got it good and hot. A little too hot, my fire alarm didn’t like it. I even had the exaust fan on. I guess the last few times I seasoned the wok, I had the windows open. I finally shut those – it’s 32 degrees out and their is snow on the ground. I haven’t turned on the heat yet, waiting for it to get cold. LOL.
