When Woks Get Rusty…

I’ve had my steel wok for years and years, and it’s seen a lot of service. When I bought it at Cost Plus (I think, it was a long time ago) I dutifully “seasoned” it with oil and then for the first few years I’d wipe it clean but not scrub it with soap and water, since that’s what I’ve always read is the recommended way to manage the wok and avoid rust.

But time passes, meals are cooked and it started to get grungy. Yeah, that’s the technical term. So I started scrubbing it after all, though sometimes I’d still just wipe it out post-stir fry or post-fried rice. Next time I pulled it out, though, it wouldn’t look clean and ready to go, it would look like, well, like someone put it away without cleaning it.

Fried rice is one of my favorite go-to meals, fast, easy, and quite tasty, but even then it could go for weeks without being pulled out of the cabinet. While slowly rusting. Yech.

In fact, here’s how it looks now, after constant scrubbing:

Would you want to be cooking on that?

As I realized that it was time to get a new wok, I got a note from IMUSA about their latest cookware line and lo and behold, they had a 14-inch wok with an anti-rust coating. Sold!

And so here’s my new 14-inch wok with “anti-rust coating”:

Beautiful, isn’t it?

Now to give it a test run. I’ll probably make fried rice.

Oh! And my quick recipe: two cups of cooked white rice, two tablespoons of peanut oil, a tablespoon of sesame oil, a few tablespoons of soy sauce (I prefer the light sodium version), 1 cup of mixed veggies and an egg. Heat up the wok with the peanut oil, then dump in the veggies and cook them for a minute or two, break in the egg, give that another minute or so, add the rice and soy sauce, then keep mixing up and stirring everything. Once the egg looks cooked add the sesame oil, mix it up quickly and you’re done. Ready to eat!