Pug’s Place

So I got a high-carbon steel 14″ wok for my birthday last week. It’s glorious, I’ve stir fried two nights in a row this week. It’s great fun to cook with! However, before you can cook with a carbon steel wok you have to season it, a process of burning oil into its cooking surface to prevent rust and to keep food from sticking. A properly seasoned wok works as if it has Teflon on it, but the seasoning won’t melt off at high heat like Teflon will. Seasoning a wok, however, is a long process. Luckily you should only have to do it once.

The card that came with my wok contained seasoning instructions that were mostly ineffective. They said to spread oil in the wok on medium heat, then tilt the wok over the heating element to heat all sides of the wok evenly. As should be obvious to anyone who’s played around in the kitchen, this won’t work. Their seasoning instructions, no matter how much care I took doing them, only managed to season the bottom of the wok. E.g., the obvious and easy place. The sides were still bare steel. So I used some directions provided by “fast_matt” on the Amazon page for this wok and took photographs along the way. I’m reprinting those here without permission but I doubt “fast_matt” will mind. So, without further ado…

How To Oven Season A Carbon-Steel Wok

1. First, stove-season the wok per the instructions, concentrating on the bottom. Trying to heat the sides over an electric range is ineffective; that’s what the next step is for.
   I found it works best to pre-heat the wok on medium to medium-high heat, THEN wipe oil onto the inside surfaces with a repeatedly-folded paper towel. Take care that your hand does not contact the pan or the hot oil in the towel; use the paper towel in such a way that your fingers are several inches from the hot surface. BE CAREFUL! This will require wiping more oil onto the pan fairly frequently, but has the added advantage (over pouring, then spreading) of limiting the amount of oil in the pan, so if you over-heat it the flames will be inches rather than feet high and quickly go out.
2. After stove-seasoning, let cool and remove the long handle by unscrewing the hanging eye.
3. Wrap the small handle in a wet dishcloth or wet paper towels, then wrap the wet cloth completely in aluminum foil. This will keep the handle below 250 degrees F or so as long as there’s water left due to the thermodynamics of phase changes.
4. Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.
5. Heat the wok on a burner at medium heat to heat the bottom
6. Wipe the entire inner surface with oil, then (USING TWO OVEN MITTS!) put the wok in the oven for 20 minutes.
7. Remove from oven (REMEMBER THE OVEN MITTS!), let the wok cool, rinse the oil out with hot water, and lightly scour the inside with a fine nylon mesh to smooth the rough spots (I used the scrubber on a sponge, but an onion bag works well too).
8. Re-wet and re-wrap the cloth keeping the handle cool — be careful, the cloth will be at water’s boiling temperature!
9. Dry with a paper towel and heat briefly over medium to medium-high heat to remove any remaining moisture.
10. Repeat the oven-seasoning procedure at least 2 or 3 times.

After all of this you should have a wok with a black bottom and rich brown sides, ready to cook!