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Let me tell you about the time I cried eating this:

Zeze

Zeze

Lifer
I still remember it like yesterday.

I was visiting my ex’s uncle’s place 7 years ago- they’re Chinese. Now as you know, when you dine out at a decent Chinese place, the dishes exhibit that amazing ‘smoky’ flavor. I don’t think it’s solely from using wok, because that flavor is absent using wok at home. I believe it comes from the uber gas burner heat they have in restaurants to super sear their food. You can also taste the similar ‘smoky-ness’ in decent Italian joints with their properly sautéed pasta dishes.

Anyways, the uncle was about to cook us lunch at his backyard. It was a beautiful summer day. We sat outside and he busted out this small single-unit restaurant grade burner. You know the one with 1000 flame teeth/eyes. It looked something like this with the hose feeding out to a propane tank.
burnerstandhazel_1m.jpg


The flame was FIERCE, something akin to this:
20140423-wok-mon-testing-food-lab-4.jpg


He wok’d the CRAP out of small batch ingredients. The flame DESTROYED whatever was touching the wok with a beautifully loud sizzle.

And when he served the dish called Beef Chow Fun, I died eating it. It is the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted. I’ve had many beef chow fun in my life before. None of them matched that intense smoky flavor. None of them matched afterward.

Beef-Chow-Fun.jpg


Now I’m in search of this FIERCE outdoor gas burner. Where can I find one? How much do they go for?
 
Looks delicious. Reminds me of how much I love the Spicy Chicken Pad Thai here for $5 every tuesday at this Vietnamese place downtown. One more day... 😀
 
Here we call them ring stoves. It can burn a huge amount of LNG is a relatively short amount of time.

5-four-ring-burner.jpg
 
I'd love to get one of those burners. Can't really use our wok on our electric stove. would a turkey fryer burner work-I can get my hands on one of those pretty easily.
 
I don't know but I agree how satisfying is that when you toss raw meat into a wok or pan that is SO HOT, and that beef just "TSSSS!!!!" frighteningly loud... man that is just an orchestra on the senses, sight sound smell!
 
yeah, i love those chinese burners - my kind of porn.

and yes the high intensity flame is fundamental for good chinese food.

the veg they use are very high in water content (obviously) and in order to retain a bit of texture, you need to cook them super-quick.
and the meat, which they almost always cut into tiny bite chunks, also would dry out with prolonged cooking.


i have actually been dabbling in chinese food (quite successfully) for a few months, and i would love to have one of those.
 
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that flavor is called wok hei aka the 'breath of the wok' and it is indeed because of the super high intensity heat they use in Chinese kitchens. There is another thread going on about woks. Get the book Breath of the Wok and buy a high btu burner. That's my next move.
 
I have a long story but I won't derail things.

Was unusual though the first time I ever saw a Wok was in the mid 60's at my Grandmothers house in rural Indiana on a gas stove, and she was almost as German as you could get. She was a pretty unique person, could make damned good Cajun food also. I think I was only 6 or 7, but I remember her doing stir fry.
 
Zeze said:
I don't think turkey fryer is anywhere hot enough.
Click to expand...
Most will get I to the range you want. Dunno what butch has at 185k, maybe one that looks like a dual 12 guage, but there's a reason bon appetit suggests getting an outdoor burner. Things put out way more BTUs than home indoor burners.
 
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