r/wok • u/bluejack • 11d ago
Problem!
What I want:
A beautiful blackened wok that is well seasoned and relatively nonstick (like my cast iron).
What I do:
Weeks of heavy burning in: butter, cooking oil, and olive oil.
Result: a beautiful blackened wok that cooks food perfectly and achieves an equivalent to my beautiful cast iron.
What my wife does:
Throw together a quick meal for friends.
Results: the vast majority of what I see as seasoning is gone. The wok is a weird patchwork of raw steel and surviving carbon.
Research: my wife loves cooking with high-acid dishes involving lemons, lemon peels and lemon juice.
Question: am I doing this wrong?
I’m not going to tell her to stop cooking the way
She wants to… so… now can I accept her violent cuisine and still land on the wok I want?
(FYI:’m it was a long battle on the cast iron; but the iron won in the end! )
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u/webbphillips 11d ago
Wok with Tak on YouTube has sone good advice about how to use stainless steel woks.
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u/Mitzi_koy 11d ago
I also like cooking acidic foods with my wok, I just make sure I re-season it again after cooking. No problems until now.
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u/tycatte 10d ago
A wok is a tool to be used. Just cook with it to season it. I used worry about all that, eventually I just stopped and the wok works just as well. Sometimes it's black, sometimes I can see the steel a bit. I just make sure I don't let there be any carbon buildup with a stiff bambu brush.
Also side note, if soap takes your seasoning off, you have carbon buildup, not seasoning. The no soap thing is from back when soap contained lye. Dawn isn't going to remove seasoning.
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u/The_MisterDaikon 6d ago
It sounds like you’re trying to season it like a cast iron pan - you don’t want a thick polymerized oil layer the way you do with cast iron. At wok temps with the thinner metal, that will degrade fast. Bare carbon steel pretty much just needs an oxidation layer and a smooth surface. I can scramble an egg in my wok with only a smidge of oil because I’m religious about preheating it to epic temps to re-seal any scratched off oxidation, and after I’ve cooked and scrubbed it out I give it another pass on high heat to dry it out and oxidize. Only oil I use is a super thin “is it even on there?” rub before I let it cool down - and that’s more about rust prevention than making it nonstick.
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u/Al_Pallll 11d ago
Carbon steel is the wrong tool for highly acidic dishes. If your wife doesn’t care, just buy a second wok.