Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There are two basic types of wok: (1) thin carbon steel with a long handle, (2) heavy cast iron. The former, a Peking-style wok, is what is usually found in restaurants. It's all about movement, using your wrist to toss the food. However, if you do not have a Chinese range, the usual home burner will not get hot enough. Cast iron woks stay stationary. On a typical home burner you need to let it pre-heat for at least 5 minutes, until it is literally smoking. If properly cured, food will not stick. I have used the wok for up to 3 hours straight, cooking one items after another. I rinse it with a sponge, dry it, put is on the stove top, and spray it with canola oil. The residual heat is enough. The Lodge wok, like all their cookware, is the top-of-the-line. I purchased a less expensive brand, but eventually gave it away when I bought the Lodge. Pre-seasoning is nice, but does not replace proper maintenance. Never use soap. Scrub out any food particles. Bacon grease is a good agent for curing, but the best is flax oil. Flax oil is a drying oil. It's the edible equivalent of linseed oil. Put on a light coat and cook in the oven at 450. A few treatments will give an amazing non-stick surface. I use my cast iron pans daily, but use the flax oil treatment only every month or so. Get a 16" wok spatula (Chuan). Its rounded end gives full contact with the cooking surface. With no corners and the round surface matching the round end of the spatula, nothing escapes. Also, this wok is not just for Chinese/Asian cooking. At lower heat you can use it for almost any type of cuisine. I recently made a bacon tomato sauce in it. First I cubed the bacon and cooked it in the wok at medium. (Using center-cut bacon, a lot less fat.) After the bacon was crispy, I added onions and garlic, cooking them in the bacon fat. Then added sun-dried tomatoes, diced tomatoes, various herbs. The entire recipes was complete in one pot. Washed it with a damp cloth and it was ready for reuse. This wok lives on top of my stove.