Traditional Woks

The woks have been the integral part of the kitchen for Chinese cuisines and woks are nothing but the traditional pans of Chinese cookery. Now it is also found and widely used in the American kitchen. The kitchen of every home in china has the classic Chinese style wok. They come with a rounded bottom but more often with a flat bottom. Their use depends on the stovetop designs used. The Chinese stovetop is open-topped braziers where the bottom of the wok sits inside. For this reason the pan used is wide at the top which prevents its falling into the heat source. Not only this rounded shape helps the food to fall into the center where the heat is more.

But if we take a look at the American style wok the only difference is of the handle. The traditional handles come with two loop handles on the side. But the Americans use the pots with long handle and so the new woks have come with the a single handle and some with shorter helper handle on the opposite side, along with the main long handle. The woks are basically used for stir-frying but you can also do steaming, braising or deep-frying.

While buying it should be seen that the woks and stir-fry should be of good conductive metal like aluminum, cast-iron and Carbon steel and the non-stick must have the base pan of thick gauge, heat-conducting materials.