大块头 468 Report post Posted September 6, 2020 I read an interesting article in the New York Times this morning about how to achieve the quasi-mystical "wok hei"（锅气）flavor in stir-fry food. Chinese restaurants do it with gigantic ranges that envelop the wok in an inferno of flame, but this author says you can mimic that effect by directly blowtorching the food. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
abcdefg 4,415 Report post Posted September 6, 2020 Interesting! Wow! And it is from Kenji Lopes-Alt, one of my cooking heroes. After half a year back here in the US, I am really missing my Kunming kitchen. Miss my strong gas stove, miss my well-seasoned wok, miss my superbly balance Hong Kong knive. (Don't even get me started on the local ingredients which I miss.) I have managed to get wok hei there with just high burner heat if I tip and shake the pan just right. Here in Texas, my cooktop is electric and I don't have a decent exhaust hood, so it would set off smoke alarms and stink up my whole house if I even attemped to try Kenji's method. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
大块头 468 Report post Posted September 6, 2020 What about using a grill? Ha, I don't think I'm the only one missing your recipe posts... 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Demonic_Duck 1,383 Report post Posted September 7, 2020 On 9/6/2020 at 3:48 PM, 大块头 said: "wok hei"（锅气） I think this should be 镬气 - weirdly, the character usually used for "wok" in Cantonese is not 锅, despite similar pronunciations. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
大块头 468 Report post Posted September 8, 2020 It's a different character in Cantonese I guess? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dawei3 327 Report post Posted September 8, 2020 In grad school, I had Chinese American housemates. One's parents had a Chinese restaurant outside of San Francisco. Their ancestors were from Guangdong. For fried rice, their "secret" for smoky flavor was Polish Kielbasa sausage. It made me laugh to think they used this in their restaurant. However, my housemate was correct, Kielbasa gave the rice an excellent smoked flavor - far far far better than the typical sausage used by Cantonese restaurants in the San Francisco area. (while I like Chinese food, I found that Cantonese sausage tasted terrible. This type of sausage was popular in Cantonese-type Chinese restaurants in the Bay area.) 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Demonic_Duck 1,383 Report post Posted September 8, 2020 19 hours ago, 大块头 said: It's a different character in Cantonese I guess? Looks like I need to upgrade my Pleco purchases 🤣 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
abcdefg 4,415 Report post Posted September 9, 2020 On 9/8/2020 at 1:55 PM, Dawei3 said: For fried rice, their "secret" for smoky flavor was Polish Kielbasa sausage. It made me laugh to think they used this in their restaurant. What a smart trick! I look forward to trying it, especially since it's available here (Texas.) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
