The Wok: Recipes and Techniques

The Food Lab author J. Kenji Lopez-Alt brings his insightful, scientifically focused approach to this ancient cooking vessel, serving up recipes but even more importantly techniques for making the most of what he calls the most versatile pan in your kitchen.

To be frank, if you simply want ideas for stir-frying, you will find this book overwhelming. The Wok is written for the cook who cares about the metallurgical properties of a good wok, wants guidance on the choice of cooking oil, and wants to learn about properly cutting vegetables, meat and poultry so that they stir-fry effectively.

There are recipes, of course, almost all of them for dishes that come from wok-using cultures in East Asia. You can learn to prepare buchimgae, the Korean pancake; jook, congee and their many variations; and Cantonese-style clams in black beans sauce. But you'll also learn how to batter and dredge foods for deep frying, how to steam-boil eggs, and even how to stuff and shape the dumplings you'll be pan-frying.

This is an impressively thorough, exciting book.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.