How are woks different from regular pots and pans?

How funny! I almost bought a wok at IKEA today. But that place is such a wallet-suck, with their .99 oven mitt here and their $1.99 tealight candle holders there…

Anyway. Woks. It’s the shape. The way they’re curved makes them especially effective for quick cooking of smaller pieces of food using little oil. And you can push food up to the sides as they’re high, unlike regular frying pans, but the food will stay on the side, as opposed to a pot.

This explains it all a bit better.

Pots and pans have flat bottoms. Woks are curved, so the food doesn’t have to soak up the oil in the pan.
Nothing wrong with flat bottoms. I love’m both. Just sayin’.

They make fantastic helmets, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shells and other pieces of body armor.

Everyone should own one, you never know when the ‘Pocalypse is gonna go down.

Woks also help concentrate liquids near the area of highest heat, helping with evaporation. This is good if you want to concentrate flavor. When I’m making reductions, I’ll use my wok for this reason, even if it’s not Chinese food.

@asmonet – Is that the Zombie ‘Pocalypse or just the regular one?

OK. The wok was invented because the Chinese had very little wood to cook with and very little oil, so they had to cook FAST and not waste the oil and wood that they had. So they used a minimum of oil, and what they did was fry the various ingredients, one at a time, FAST. And when they were done frying the onions (or whatever) FAST, they’d push them up onto the side of the Wok, which allowed the oil in those foods to drain back down, and then and quickly fry the next whatever. In the end they’d have all of these different flash fried foods pushed up on the sides of the wok, and after frying up the last thing—chicken or what ever—they’d push all the food back into the bottom together. I’ve cooked fried rice w/chicken (with eggs, green peppers and onions) in a Wok using this premise, and it really does make a difference….

@Darwin: The dangers are many. Zombies just seem most likely. :D

@Darwin @asmonet : It’s getting warmer out, and you know, April showers bring May zombies. When is this going down? Seriously.

Oh, and I like woks because they look cool and they have 2 handles. Also when you’re shimmy shakin’ and flipping your stuff (my favorite cooking time activity) your food stays in the pan better. It’s also really versatile. You can use it for stir fry, but it’s deep enough to be used to boil stuff in or like a sort of stove-top roast pan. The sky is the limit.

@Darwin @asmonet @ubersiren There is a new book out, called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I started thinking about the 2005 version of P&P with Keira Knightley.
Now, Keira is a rare beauty…no question. If beauty were brains, she would be Albert Einstein, but she isn’t very bright. As a matter of fact, if brains were beauty, she would probably be Einstein.
And zombies, of course, love to munch on brains. The idea of pitting her against zombies might not be such a bad idea.
Just sayin’
Back on topic, Wok cooking is really much healthier.
Drat. I can’t sell it. I just wanted to add that bit about zombies.

Woks are also good for melting chocolate because it is even heat and it cooks fast like everyone has mentioned. We use ours for making candy.