So, now that you've had the wok for a few days, here's my observation about them: they work well but, since you're using a flat bottomed wok on a home electric range top, those videos you see of stir fry cooking in a Chinese restaurant? They don't really apply. Those woks are on a specialty gas burner that put out enormous amounts of heat focused at the center but creeping up the sides. That means two things: there are temperature gradients up the sides of the wok, and the heat at the center bottom is fierce. That's why the cooks are always stirring and rotating the food, and it's amazingly quick. They stir fry because they must.
For most home electric ranges, you get neither the same intense heat at the bottom, nor is the temperature gradient as consistently smooth. This means that if you use the same dramatic "stir, fry, and flip" technique you see in the videos you won't get the same result.
Here's what works for me: don't stir and flip as aggressively as you've seen. Let your meat and vegetables sit at the bottom of the wok, **undisturbed**, for a minute or two before stirring and flipping. That will get you closer to the Maillard reactions that you get with those high heat dedicated wok stations, especially since your wok is non-stick. This goes against the grain -- you have to adjust to doing nothing when you want to be doing something. Philosophically, you have to contemplate peacefully, like the Buddha, while the way of the food and the wok go at their pace, not at yours. You have to accept nothingness as a technique of cooking but, as the famous philosopher Luke Jackson said, "sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand."
For most home electric ranges, you get neither the same intense heat at the bottom, nor is the temperature gradient as consistently smooth. This means that if you use the same dramatic "stir, fry, and flip" technique you see in the videos you won't get the same result.
Here's what works for me: don't stir and flip as aggressively as you've seen. Let your meat and vegetables sit at the bottom of the wok, **undisturbed**, for a minute or two before stirring and flipping. That will get you closer to the Maillard reactions that you get with those high heat dedicated wok stations, especially since your wok is non-stick. This goes against the grain -- you have to adjust to doing nothing when you want to be doing something. Philosophically, you have to contemplate peacefully, like the Buddha, while the way of the food and the wok go at their pace, not at yours. You have to accept nothingness as a technique of cooking but, as the famous philosopher Luke Jackson said, "sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand."
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