Believe it or not, as much as I love cast iron, it is most definitely NOT a
good idea for a wok.
The best woks are made from relatively low carbon steel, and rust is a major
problem that must be constantly avoided but more often overcome.
In wok materials, "cheaper" is better (up to a reasonable point, of course).
I own many woks and carbon steel is king.

The sides of the wok do get hot, but nowhere near as hot as the bottom of
the wok and this is considered a vital feature to almost any oriental chef.
This property provides the instantaneous heat control needed for many wok
dishes and allows some oil to cling to the sides instead of just falling
into a pool at the bottom of the wok. You may notice that most recipes
using a wok, use very high heat and the food is in quickly and out quickly,
with most foods pre-cut to provide roughly equal cooking times.

However, that is not practical for some dishes, and the slightly cooler
sides of a good wok allow some control of the process.
By-the-way, Teflon and other non-stick woks are considered garbage by most
chefs and a very bad choice because they do not allow the food to stay up on
the sides thereby preventing this important feature. There are also woks
made for non-flame stoves (electric, induction etc.) and they have a flatter
bottom. I am told they are needed for good cooking but do not behave as
well as a round bottom wok.
For other dishes (steamed, boiled, etc.) this heat control feature is less
important or of no concern whatsoever.

If you have any doubts about this, just go to a few oriental restaurants and
you will see that they all use carbon steel woks of many sizes from 9-inch
to 36-inch and larger, but you will never see a plastic coated or electric
wok and almost never see cast iron.

The real debate in wok design is about handles (wood, metal, long, short,
one, two, etc.) That one depends on the type of cooking and personal
preference, in my never to be humble opinion.

Go carbon steel, avoid cast iron and forgo plastic non-stick garbage. One
size does not fit all in wok cooking. Be particularly careful to get the
proper size cooking implements, as they should match the curvature of the
wok for best food control and to avoid scratching, gouging, or damaging the
wok surface. It is also a good idea to file down any sharp edges even on
the proper size cooking implements for the same reason.

Your presumption that ingredients needing a shorter cooking time should
simply be added later, is NOT valid for many (most?) dishes, as the order of
ingredients is almost always overlooked as a vital component of the cooking
process. For example, when you add sugar (beginning, middle, or end) makes
a world of difference in the final product. The same is true for
flavorings, seasonings, and many other components. That is why the
ingredients of most recipes are written in the order they should be
incorporated and not randomly. When I worked as a Food Chemist, (vacation
job, just for change of pace), this was one of the most important
considerations we worried about, as cooking is, after all , chemistry at its
best, and the order in which you combine ingredients results in totally
different reactions when added at different places within the process. The
order of ingredients is much more important than even our competitors
understood and that alone can account for the difference between a good
product and a great one!

Just my two cents worth.

Bob
Los Angeles, Calif.


"Jaclyn" > wrote in message
...
> I'm trying to decide on what type of wok to get for when I get married
> in a few months, and there seems to be a bit of a debate about whether
> the sides of a wok should be hot or not. I was looking at this
> carbon-steel wok on cooking.com:
>
> http://www.cooking.com/products/shprodde.asp?SKU=179458
>
> There is a review on that page which says that a real wok is supposed to
> get hot in the sides, and this one does not, which creates a possibility
> of food-poisoning. I have also read that cast-iron woks can be good
> because they heat evenly all over, including the sides (of course there
> is the downside of their weight, and the fact that they are less
> responsive when you want to turn down the heat).
>
> On the other hand, I have read (in some newsgroup postings and in a
> book) that the sides of a wok are *not* supposed to be as hot as the
> bottom, because that way you can push certain ingredients to the side
> while you are cooking other ingredients. Personally, I have never used
> this technique myself, and I'm not sure why it would be beneficial. It
> seems to me that if you are using certain ingredients that you don't
> want to cook as long, you would just add them in later, rather than
> pushing them up the sides. But maybe I'm wrong - I've only stir-fried a
> few times, using a large flat pan that belongs to my mother.
>
> So my question is, is it better to get a wok that gets hot on the sides,
> or one that doesn't? And which material would be best for this purpose?
> (I'm assuming cast-iron if I want it to heat all over, and carbon steel
> if I want cooler sides?) My fiance has an electric stove, so I will need
> something with a flat bottom.
>
> -Jaclyn