isw wrote:

> In article >,
> ChattyCathy > wrote:
>
>> isw wrote:

>> >>
>> >> I have one of those stand-alone electric woks - a Kenwood, which
>> >> IIRC is made in the USA. The heat therefrom goes up to "more than
>> >> hot enough"
>> >
>> > It's not how hot you can get it when it's empty -- it's how hot you
>> > can *keep it* after you toss the meat in; the steam carries away a
>> > HUGE amount of heat. And that's where an electric wok simply cannot
>> > keep up with a gas one.
>>
>> That's what I meant when I said, (which you chose to snip)
>>
>> "The heat therefrom goes up to "more than hot enough" -
>> but it is not "constant" heat as the thermostat keeps kicking in and
>> out, so the heat varies"
>
> I cut it because it didn't matter. An electric wok, with the
> temperature dialed all the way up to "nuclear fusion", might get that
> hot when empty, but will still cool down a lot when you put food in
> it, and it will not recover until nearly all the water has been cooked
> out of the food (unless you cook in very small batches).

Of course my (preheated) wok cools down somewhat when I add (room
temperature) ingredients to it - as does any other (preheated) skillet,
pan etc. How much it cools down depends on its thermal mass. And yes,
when we're stir-frying meat/poultry on maximum heat we *do* cook it in
very small batches to try to minimize this problem.

How quickly it can recover from a drop in temperature depends on the
size of the element (and we use 240V appliances, so we don't have the
US restriction of 1500W per outlet max, and this particular wok has a
2000W element - and I don't even find that to have sufficient "oomph"
to recover quickly enough).

The problem I was talking about, which is what you also mentioned up
thread, is keeping a constant temperature without adding or removing
anything from the wok - and not only when it's set for maximum heat.
For example, if I'm letting something like coconut milk simmer on low
heat for a while to reduce it, I have the same problem. The thermostat
in an electric wok is an on/off switch, unlike the knob on a gas
burner, so the temperature drops to below where I want it to be, then
it heats up to almost boiling, switches off, and gradually cools down
again. With a gas burner and a suitable wok I could set it to stay at a
(more or less) constant temperature.

My wok is one of these (exact model) if you're interested:

http://www.kenwoodworld.com/en/Produ...ric-Wok/EW200/
or
http://tinyurl.com/32zlog4
--
Cheers
Chatty Cathy