Carbon Steel Wok

I shopped online for a few years looking to replace the wok I had in my 20's (71 now). I knew exactly what I wanted, but everything fell short in one way or the other until I saw this Babish Wok. I ordered it instantly and had to wait because it was on back order, but I had waited for years already so a bit of a backlog wasn't going to deter me. Glad I waited. This wok is everything I wanted. It's an actual wok, not just a high-sided frying pan with way too much flat surface on the bottom to be a real wok. It's really pretty, until you make it your go to kitchen work horse and then it starts looking like it's 'loved.' So happy I finally found this. And even on my coil-burner electric stove, it heats up great. I don't need a support ring, the handle comes off so you can use it in the oven. The handle is just the right angle for my older wrists. It's not to heavy but made of really nice carbon steel. It ticks all the boxes I had....even the price. And it Cook's and cleans like a breeze. I highly recommend this. I'd give it 10 stars if I could.

This is an amazing wok - thick enough to be sturdy, smooth inside to be able to season well and keep clean, flat bottom but with curves on the edges to be able to stir, perfect slope to the sides, wide enough to contain the food with movements, and a removable wooden handle so it can be seasoned in the oven. The price is an excellent value. The only downside for some folks would be is that it is not pre seasoned or nitrided or whatever. However it is not difficult to season it - just takes time and must follow directions. BUT when you do it yourself, that means you get an excellent price.

I got this Wok because it was recommended from a YouTube channel called Cult Flav where they made a video reviewing a bunch of different woks. I got this Wok used in pretty good condition. Little bit of rust around the small handle rivits, might be a problem/annoying to clean but I don't think it'll be a big issue. The wooden handle is easy to remove and reattach making it really easy to clean the wok in the sink. I know some people that have reviewed this Wok have said this wok is pretty heavy but I think it's pretty light (hit the gym people. I'm just joking). But this wok does has some heft to it so that can it's retain heat to deep fry stuff. If you don't want a countertop home deep fryer, Woks are actually ideal to deep fry stuff according Kenji Alt Lopez since it actually uses less oil, high wide walls help with oil splatter and overfilling/oil rise once the food is placed in. This wok being kinda heavy to retain heat and having a flat bottom is great for at home cooks that want to deep fry food and don't have Wok burner. For seasoning the Wok, I use a mix of Avocado Oil and Flax Seed Oil. I followed the directions for Oven seasoning and seasoned it 3 times. I have not have any issues with food sticking to the Wok. Due the weight I can see this being a problem for some that like to toss their food while stir frying (Not me though cuz I'm a big strong boy lol). Overall I think this is an great all purpose wok that can be used to stir fry and deep fry food and has a easy removable handle for ease of cleaning.

I live in the US but, because of work, I lived in Taiwan ROC for a good while. While I lived there, a friend of mine took me to the night market to buy a real, authentic, hand hammered wok. I purchased one bit I put it away, as the kitchen in my little apartment was rudimentary at best, and there were so may good places to get good cheap Chinese food within walking distance. I learned to love Chinese food, and we cook a lot of it in our house. It’s tasty, quick, and better for us than a lot of American food. When I got back to the States, I pulled out the hand hammered wok, seasoned it, and was immediately disappointed. The flat part of the bottom was too small. A small portion of what we were cooking got too much heat and a larger portion didn't get enough. We went back to using a frying pan. Recently I purchased https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003IYI70A/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title. In the book, Grace Young goes into a lot of detail about how to purchase and care for a wok. I decided to look for a new one. I wasn't satisfied with any of the woks available at kitchen or department stores or Oriental food stores locally, so I started searching online. I found this one. When I got it, like the stubborn cuss I am, I decided to ignore all of Grace Young's advice about seasoning the wok. I have used Crisbee https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E1PMBK6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 cast iron and carbon steel seasoning for a long time and it has worked very well. So I took the handle off the wok, followed the directions on the Crisbee puck, seasoning the wok 4 times in my oven. Since then, we have used this wok a lot, and all I can say is wow! It cooks so much better than my old wok and better than my frying pan. There is a larger flat area on the bottom that helps with cooking and keeps the wok more stable. The angle of the handle is not as steep as our old wok and that makes it much easier for my wife is vertically challenged. I listened to Grace Young and use a mixture of salt an oil to clean the wok. Then I dry it, put it on the stove over medium low heat for a couple of minutes, rub a very light coating of crisbee on it, let it cool, and put it away. The seasoning on the wok gets better each time we use it. I wish I had found this wok a long time ago, it is great.

Almost perfect. Carbon steel. 14". Induction safe. Flat bottom. Perfect except that it is heavy for me.

I purchased this wok three months ago, and I can't say enough good about it. I've been looking for a ling time to find the right wok for me and this is it. my criteria were: 1. flat bottom for gas or electric. Easy one. For most home cooks, the round bottom woks require a ring stand (for goas) or can't be used. On gas, the ring stand retains heat to the point of potential damage to the stove finish. must have a flat bottom. 2. sturdiness. most woks, with the exception of some in the Asian markets are flimsy. I bought a Joyce Chen wok that had great reviews, but it has a lot of wobble and flex in the bowl- i hated it while using only until i found something better. 3. carbon steel. Wok must be carbon steel. -- and this is the the reason i give it 2/5 for easy to clean. Like a carbon steel or cast iron pan, this wok requires a little extra when done. There are tons of how to's on maintaining a carbon steel pan so i won't go into it, besides my recommendation to use the chain mail scrubber. Works like magic. Hot water and scrubbing only. 4. handle type. I want to be able to season the entire wok, including the sides, but that is darn near impossible with bottom heat from the range top. One of the best features of this wok is the removable handle- that goes back on as solid as the day it arrived. This allows me to season my wok in the oven and get the tall sides nice and stick free. 5. Cost was not a huge concern. I want a wok that does what i want it to do. However, for the thickness of the steel and the features, it's definitely worth the extra $20, especially if you spread that out over say 30 years of use. Bottom line is, you will not regret this wok. Be prepared to clean it properly and maintain the seasoning. If you're not, go with a non-stick wok. This is not the one for you. But if you want a wok that acts the way a wok should, with high heat retention and sides that are cool enough to hold the food out of the fire, this is it. * one year update - still loving the wok! I’ve been waiting to write a one year review and here’s the short update. Everything above is still true and the way it holds seasoning is fantastic. Don’t hesitate to make this your go to wok and deep fry pan!

I seasoned this wok according to directions, and used only medium heat. I have used it twice, and each time when I washed it warm, soapy water a black substance came off and stained my dish towels. I am frightened it may have gotten in my stir fries, and my family ingested it! Don't know what this dark residue substance is, but I am returning the wok.

I bought one of these several months ago and struggled with sticking problems for a while. Now that I have figured out how to care for it the sticking problem is virtually gone and I find myself using this for a lot of non Asian dishes. An important feature of carbon steel woks is how quickly they react to small changes in the flame under them. They heat up very quickly but, just as important, they cool quickly when the heat source is removed. This is really helpful with a lot of Asian dishes where you are always walking the thin line between barely cooked and overcooked. The trick to maintaining the seasoning seems to be to avoid soap. If I have stuff stuck to the surface I sometimes soak it a few minutes and then scrub it clean with one of the stainless steel pot scrubbers. That always gets the stuck food off without needing to use soap. Then I heat it up on the stove until the residual oil starts to smoke. Then I give it a thin coating of peanut oil using a wadded up paper towel held with tongs. Us long tongs because if you are doing this right the wok is pretty hot. Then turn off the heat and let it cool enough that you can comfortably wipe off any excess oil with a dry paper towel. This avoids any gooey spots after the wok has been stored for a while. As lots of YouTube videos instruct us, its important to get the wok hot before adding food. If you do that you can fry eggs without sticking problems. I have both an induction cook top and a gas range. I think the induction cook top is virtually useless to use with a wok. The heat is totally focused on the middle of the bottom of the wok and the edges and lower part of the sides end up too cool. It also gives the induction cook top emotional problems when I lift the wok off the surface to toss things. My induction cooktop overheats and gives error messages when used to dry and re-season the wok after use. One last point. I used my wok to make on of my favorite Madhuri Jaffrey Indian dishes (Green Beans with Mustard) and found that prolonged contact with the carbon steel surface resulted in a unpleasant taste in the final product. That recipes has lemon juice in it and requires aboiut 40 minutes of cooking time. I think the acidic food is reacting with the surface of the wok resulting in a weird metallic taste.

This wok is so big and beautiful, it's a pleasure to have it on my stove and to cook in it. However, it gave me a very hard time when cooking with it initially. I learned to cook well with every other wok we have (cast iron, stainless steel, and non-stick) and I am definitely not new to carbon steel pans (thicker French ones), but this one was way too unusual and the eggs were sticking and burning, tasting bitter, no matter what I was trying to do, I was not able to pass the fried egg test three times in a row. One or even two out of three eggs were sticking. In desperation, I tried the rural Chinese method of frying pork skin with green onions in it, smothering the sides and rubbing the bottom forcefully with pig skin and onions, until the onions were charred, and washing it with boiling water and that did it. It is now as non-stick as Teflon, i.e. I can fry an Asian style egg in it (or three eggs in a row) even without oiling the wok, and it/they won't stick and taste crunchy-crispy and delicious. It heats up so fast, within a minute, and its bottom cooking surface gets so exceptionally hot even on medium setting (on 5 out of 10 it reaches 300C!!!), that I am only able to use it on 3.5/10 level max. The bottom gets hot very evenly and the sides stay cool or warmish for a fairly long time, it takes them 5-10 min to get too hot to touch. This makes stir-frying very easy and quick, in a true Asian fashion. There is no warping of the bottom at any temperature, it is sturdy. So, in the end I am very happy with this wok. It is a bit heavy for me, but only because I don't really have a use for the helper handle when stir-frying and the helper handle does warm up significantly with time and requires a silicone handle cover. The protruding pieces of rivets on the inner surface do not allow me to use a 32cm/12.5" steaming insert that I have. I would have to either search for a steamer basket with a smaller or larger diameter or forget about steaming things in that wok. which is a pity for water boils in that wok instantly and it is very well suited for steaming jobs. These two things are the only mildly inconvenient details about this wok that I found. Everything else is simply extraordinary, very high level of quality of design and functionality. For those who look for a carbon steel wok, this one is a winner.

So I ended up with this wok for a few reasons, easy removeability of the handle and the width of the base compared to other flat bottom models being the two main ones. Overall I'm pretty thrilled with it. First off, packaging. I've bought pieces of AV equipment that weren't as well packed as this wok. Hell, I'd hazard this was the best packed piece of cookware I've ever bought. It's a small touch but definitely helped. First seasoning was a bit weird because the instructions aren't on amazon.ca. I eventually found them in the item description on the .com site. Basically I just took the handle off, gave it a good was with soap and water, put it in my oven at 500F for twenty minutes, took it out, rubbed it down with sunflower oil, put it back in the oven upsidedown for an hour, then turned the oven off and let the wok cool with it. The first few uses it definitely was a bit prone to sticking if I wasn't careful and kept things moving. But it definitely works as a wok should. It changes temperature rapidly, the bottom is evenly hot while the sides taper off, allowing you to focus items that need more heat over ones cooking slower up the sides. It's definitely a bit heavy but not unmanageable and the wood handle works great. Washing up is pretty easy. Water and a scour pad has dealt with anything I've done in it and after each use I give it a light polish with sunflower oil and a little time on the heat. I'm a half dozen meals in on this and it already has a great patina going. In short, would highly recommend this wok. I know it seems a bit wanky getting a product from a line endorsed by a youtuber (even a solid one like Babish) but this is definitely worth it, especially if you need a flat bottom wok instead of a round because of the type of stovetop you have.

I have been using this for a couple of months now and I am very happy with it so far. I did quite a bit of shopping around before choosing this particular wok. I chose it for a number of reasons. First, it it is deeper than most "traditional" woks so I get less spill over (i.e. less rice, etc. flying out of the wok). The depth also makes it better for deep frying. Second, I like the long, comfortable wooden handle. It doesn't heat up and you can keep your hands far away from the steel. I also appreciate that is also detachable. Lastly, I like the heavy gauge steel - (while not specifically started I'd say it has to be about 1.7mm based on the weight). My experience has been very positive. I seasoned it 3 times before using, twice over flame and once in the oven. I have found it to be largely non-stick providing you use it correctly (you need the right temperature and you need to allow food to 'release" before moving it around). It heats up quickly and retains heat very well. I have made a variety of stir fries, fried rice, done some deep frying and make lots of eggs. Clean up is pretty simple with a quick scrub using a light nylon brush. On rare occasions when food has stuck - it scrapes off easily with a wooden spoon. Things to consider: It is on the heavier side. Smaller chefs will have a hard time handing it with one arm. The shape / ergonomics are not really traditional and not optimized for stir fry "tossing". You can do it - but it is not as natural a motion as you get with true Asian inspired woks. It requires a bit more care than the average pan (as do all carbon steel works). You should dry it over low heat and give it a light wiping with oil before putting it away.

Great quality.

Great product but the price is ridiculously high for a wok.