The Wok Shop in China Town, San Francisco (and How to Season a Cast-iron Wok)

V and I celebrated eight years of being together in my most favorite city in the world.  We are lucky to have San Francisco, the beautiful City by the Bay, right in our backyard.

Cable car on San Francisco’s picturesque hilly street

It was serendipitous that we had just picked up the April issue of San Francisco Magazine, devoted entirely to Chinese culture and politics in the City.  V has an utter fascination for anything Chinese and hence read it cover-to-cover and came across a piece called “The Wok Shop Abides” about Tane Chan’s unique shop in China Town.  The article reported that it is arguably the best place in the country to not only buy a wok but also to learn how to use one.

China Town, San Francisco

We love cooking Chinese stir-fries, and since the carbon-steel wok that we used was a constant source of frustration to both of us, we decided to shop for a new one.  Woks have a characteristic round-shaped bottom allowing vegetables to be cooked quickly over high heat using the tossing method, retaining the crispness and nutrients.

Vegetarian Szechuan Stir Fry with Seitan 

After a welcome spell of rain had washed the streets clean, V and I woked, oops, I mean walked into “The Wok Shop” on Grant Avenue, the main China Town thoroughfare.  The signs for the shop can’t be missed, but the shop itself is small and crammed with cooking implements and other novelties.  We saw woks of different kinds (cast-iron and carbon-steel) right up front and we informed the lady behind the counter that we were there to buy a cast-iron wok.  She immediately disappeared to the back of the store and came back with Randy.  It didn’t seem like they were just going to take our money and hand us a wok!

The Wok Shop in China Town, San Francisco

Randy was an intelligent-looking articulate man with a good sense of humor who was dead-serious about woks.  We told him that our current wok was misbehaving.  He looked alarmed and immediately concluded (might I say, incorrectly) that we had not seasoned our wok properly.  In any case, he decided that we had to be schooled in how to properly season a wok before he deemed us worthy of owning one!  

We are grateful that he wok’ed us (ok, last time I use this pun, I promise!) through the process of selecting, seasoning and maintaining a traditional Chinese cast-iron wok.  He spent a great deal of time answering our questions patiently, showing an apparent pride in his wares.  Only in China, he said, had they figured out even 3000 years back how to make such a thin gauge wok using cast iron.  For example, compare it to the American Lodge cast iron pan and the South Indian “vaanali” which are both fairly thick.   (Carbon-steel woks are also thin but we were not interested in one and we wouldn’t touch a non-stick one with a 10-foot pole.)  Properly seasoned, Randy told us, a cast iron wok would behave like a non-stick one.

Our new unseasoned cast-iron Chinese wok and bamboo brush

Method for seasoning and maintaining a traditional Chinese cast-iron wok
As told to us by Randy at The Wok Shop in China Town, San Francisco

Seasoning a brand-new wok:

  1. Scrub the wok with a stiff bamboo brush and wash with water to remove debris and iron dust
  2. Wipe off the water with a cloth and let it air dry completely
  3. Coat the inside and outside of the wok with a thin layer of any oil with a high smoke point (not olive oil!)  Randy seemed to prefer organic flax seed oil which is what we used.
  4. Place inside an oven pre-heated at 450F for 20 minutes to polymerize the oil
  5. Let it cool
  6. Repeat steps 3,4 and 5 a second time around to season the wok very well
  7. After the wok has cooled, place the wok over high heat on the stove and cook a chopped yellow onion tossing it up and down along the sides of the wok until charred.  Randy told us that his father who was a Chinese restaurant chef for years insisted on using an yellow onion although some sources may suggest other vegetables
  8. Discard the charred onion and clean the wok with hot water and the stiff bamboo brush
  9. It is ready for use now!

Seasoning a cast-iron wok with yellow onion

Cleaning the wok after use:

  1. Clean under running hot water using a stiff bamboo brush to remove any stuck food
  2. Wipe and dry thoroughly
To maintain the wok:
  1. Once in a while, cook an yellow onion in the wok and discard.  This will re-season the wok.
  2. The non-stickiness of the wok may sometimes be lost due to rough use and non-use.  In that case, it is okay to season the wok using the steps above for a new wok
  3. Never cook with acidic ingredients such as tomatoes, tamarind, lemon juice, vinegar etc. in the cast-iron wok.  (Meaning, you cannot simmer marinara sauce in your wok!)
  4. At least for the first year or so avoid slow cooking in the wok, such as steaming, poaching, etc. 

Here’s another take on seasoning a wok from the kitchn where they prefer a carbon-steel wok: How to buy and season a new wok
If you are more curious even after all this reading, check out this book: The Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking through Recipes and Lore by Grace Young who is mentioned in the article on the kitchn.

If you are not lucky enough to live within driving distance of San Francisco, don’t fret!  You can buy the wok online!  (Although you will definitely miss the wonderful experience of talking to the wok experts.)

Randy sold us a wok, a bamboo cleaning brush, a wok chuan (spatula) and a wok ring (so that the wok does not wobble on the stove) for a little over $30.   And I bought a few other things as well, like the lotus-shaped dessert cups which I have been on the look out for a long time!

Our seasoned cast-iron wok, ready for use!

We are excited with our newly seasoned wok and will be posting wok recipes soon!  Until then!

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