It is why I love my Santa Maria. I did a sauce tonight that I needed to reduce. It was in a small iron pan. Once I got it boiling vigorously, I raised the grill and went to a rolling boil and then a simmer. Your set-up with the wok is ingenious. Thanks!
A different approach to stir fry, technique, not recipe.
This is not about recipe, it’s more about a method that is off the beaten path. Tonight I did one of our favorite meals, Cantonese style fried noodles. The dish contains more than noodles, it’s got a protein, several vegies and some sauces and marinade. Just a touch of heat, and light crunch on the noodles and oh so yummy.
Normally I do this on my Camp Chef 4 burner stove that cranks out 30k btu on each burner. Doing the cook on the patio keeps the resulting odors out of the house, and besides, those of us here live to cook outdoors. Since I have a variety of cookers at hand, along with some interesting, to me, accessories I figured I’d take a more rustic approach to firing the wok than just turning a knob to the preferred flame/heat. This time I set up the Bronco Pro with an inverted vortex to concentrate the heat directly under the wok. I mounted a Weber GBS grate, with the hole in the middle, in the Onlyfire Santa Maria attachment that they make for the Weber Kettle. I had to put some brackets on the base rim to keep it on the Bronco since it has a similar diameter but different shape than the kettle. The exercise I set for myself was to see if there was some advantage to being able to vary the height of the wok thus changing the cooking temp, which did prove out. There are many other ways to do the same thing, as there often are, but my equipment contributed to the exercise. The wok in the picture has been my cooking companion for over 30 years. It is well seasoned and even though I had no idea how to differentiate quality of wok performance when I bought it all those years ago, it distributes heat up the sides very well in a nice gradient. I struggle with the idea of replacing an old friend like this, though knowing what I know now it would be better to have a long handle, similar to a frying pan, than the two "helper" handles this one has. That contributed to the decision to use the adjustable height grate. If I had the long handle version I’d probably set the fire up similarly, but control the active temperature by raising or lowering by hand. You can get some intense heat by nesting the pan directly on the coals, if needed.
Varying the temp is only marginally helpful between each of the steps where food product is seared or fried or brought all together for the grand finish. I typically do it on the round stove burner at a constant temp just working quickly with the turning tools to maintain proper cooking. However, this was a fun exercise, and after all, isn’t that part of why we do the cooks we do. As a devout gizmoholic I get a big kick out of experimenting with alternate techniques……………………even if they don’t revolutionize the world.
Last edited by Uncle Bob; December 21, 2020, 07:07 PM.
Leave a comment: