Hmm, I’m debating getting a good one and using it at my SO’s mom’s home (inside or outside) or getting an electric in the interim. I’m leaning toward the former, since I will have a new (possibly even semi-professional) gas stove in July.
This thread has been great 
Don’t spend a bunch on the wok. There are plenty of great models out there for not much money. The shape is more important than cost.
My default stir-frying fat is actually peanut oil. It’s got a higher smoke point than anything else I keep in my kitchen, so I can crank up the heat as high as possible without worrying about burning it.
I use a telfon frying pan for my stir-fry.
Yum.
Yeah, I don’t think I spend more than $20-$25 on mine. Other than the shape, be aware of the material. You don’ want non-stick. Why? Couple of reasons: You don’t get good browning on a non-stick pan. Second: you’re not supposed to super heat teflon like you should for wok cooking, because of some gas it releases at high temperatures. Basically, when cooking with a wok, you want to get that sucker up as hot as it possibly can go. Teflon pans are not meant for such high heat cooking.
The only steps all you folks have left out is:
Flat bottomed and large, correct? And not non-stick.
Ahh, yes this is important. The others I would have remembered 
From a previous thread: Awesome Graphic: Taming the Breath of a Wok.
Unlike some of the other posters here I can’t stand cooking with a flat-bottom wok. For me it’s much easier to flip and toss the food with a round-bottom wok using a round-edge spatula that conforms to the shape of the wok. Also the hot spot is smaller so you get a higher concentration of heat and better control over how much food is getting how much heat. In other words, it’s easier to move stuff up the side of the wok to keep warm if you want/need to. With a flat-bottom wok and stirring furiously, you tend to run into the edge separating the flat bottom from the sloped sides and food tends to spill out of the spatula and back onto the hot spot.
I’ve always used an electric range with the wok set directly on top of the burners - which of course are set on high - and while I don’t get the heat that Chinese restaurants get with flames roaring up the side of the wok, I still get adequate heat to make very tasty and enjoyable dishes. Easily enough heat to get past the smoking stage and to quickly burn the food if it isn’t kept moving. Gas, of course, is better yet, but it’s not like you can’t cook great tasting food on an electric range.
I’ve always used peanut oil for its neutral taste and high smoke point but canola would do just as well. You want something without a noticable flavor of its own and with a high smoke point so it doesn’t burn.
I’ve cooked a lot of Chinese dishes over the years and overall the best ones (the ones that taste most like the food you get at Chinese restaurants) come from Martin Yan’s cookbooks. His recipes tend to be heavy on ingredients and preparation but I haven’t had a bad one yet.
I’m going to list below a recipe that is fairly simple but very, very tasty. It’s easily the favorite of everybody that I’ve ever cooked Chinese stir-fry food for and I’ve been cooking it regularly for over twenty-five years. I think it will give you a good idea of the process and it will reward you with a very tasty dish (provided you can handle just a little bit of heat) when you’re done.
Chicken with Walnuts
1 1/2 lbs. boneless chicken breasts, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons dry sherry
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon grated ginger root
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons peanut or canola oil (keep oil handy as you may need more)
2 medium green peppers, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
8 green onions, bias-sliced into 3/4-inch lengths
1 cup walnut halves
In small bowl blend soy sauce into cornstarch; stir in dry sherry, gingerroot, sugar, salt, and red pepper. Set aside.
Preheat wok over high heat; add cooking oil. Stir-fry green peppers and green onions in hot oil 2 minutes or until crisp-tender. Remove from wok.
Add walnuts to wok; stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes until heated through. Remove from wok.
(Add more oil if necessary.)
Add HALF of the chicken to HOT wok; stir-fry 2 minutes. Remove from wok.
Add a little more oil if needed and stir-fry remaining chicken 2 minutes, then add cooked chicken back into wok.
Stir sauce mixture as cornstarch will have settled, then stir into chicken. Cook and stir till thickened and bubbly. (You can add a little more cornstarch if sauce fails to thicken.)
Stir in vegetables till sauce and chicken are thoroughly incorporated; cover and cook (still on high heat) 1 minute more.
(This is an important step which will blend the flavors. The food will not burn even though it seems like it will. :))
Remove lid, stir thoroughly and serve immediately with rice of your choice.
This is the wok set I use. It’s inexpensive and as you can see it comes with everything you need: lid, spatula, wok ring and so forth. I’ve been using this same set since 1984 and it’s been a real workhorse.
Oops, left this out. The walnuts go back in the wok along with the cooked vegetables.
One other thing. Leftovers are very good the next day cold. It’s has a completely different flavor but still very good.
I also prefer a round bottomed wok. We got ours from a local Asian supermarket, but it’s important to properly clean and season it before you start cooking. Done well, it becomes really non-stick, and you don’t need to do more than scrub it briefly with hot water before drying over high heat again (perhaps a final slick of oil if you are storing it away. I think I read somewhere not to use soap (destroys the surface) - certainly we don’t need to.
You’ve had some good tips about the actual practice of stir frying - but might help to not think about stir fries as a single cuisine; many Asian countries stir fry but there are distinct differences in ingredients and flavours - a Thai stir fry differs from a Malaysian, Cambodian or Chinese (and there are many types of Chinese based on the region).
So for Thai you try to get a balance of sweet (sugar or palm sugar), hot (chilli), sour (lime juice, tamarind paste etc), salty (fish sauce or dried shrimps) and sometimes bitter. They use more coconut milk, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves, and are served with jasmine rice (where basmati is used more in Indian cuisine). A Malaysian stir fry (like Char Kway Teow) still uses garlic, sugar, dried shrimp and chilli paste, but involves more soy sauce and less of the sour notes etc. Getting a little more familiar with these nuances can help you mix up your cooking rather than doing the same thing just with different vegetables.
One chilli paste we like which really gives our Thai a kick is this brand of Nam prik pao. I also became addicted to Golden Mountain saucewhen we were in Cambodia (seemingly a bottle on every table), and it’s my go to sprinkle for a basic savoury stir fried rice. We use Golden Boy fish sauce (similar to the Squid brand, but I like the label more!)
And a tip for mixing eggs into a stir fried rice dish - I always used to put the egg in at the end and end up with a murky brown slush as the egg combined with the sauce. Now, I cook the egg like a little omelet right at the beginning and then remove it when almost cooked (like you would meat). Popped back in right at the end along with bean sprouts, nuts etc and it breaks up into lovely fluffy strands, much more like a restaurant version.
I cook ingredients in groups, longest cooking first - i.e. roots, meats, leafy stuff in that order… Once each batch is largely done, I slide it up on the side of the wok and throw the next into the cooking area. At the end, everything gets a quick firing followed by saucing.
So for me, the most important reason to stay away from nonstick has yet to be mentioned. I want to be able to shove cooked bits of food up on the sides of the wok away from the heat and have them stay there while other bits cook. On a nonstick wok, if you do that, they have a tendency to slide right back down into the cooking area.
I’ve had my cheap-ass hand-hammered carbon steel wok since college, but I’ve tried cooking with others. IMHO, wok design hasn’t improved over the ages – electric, stainless, nonstick, whatever, the best are still the inexpensive ones you find at Asian food stores.
I prefer flat-bottomed for an electric stove, but round on gas is better.
And I won’t buy anything but Tiparos fish sauce. I’m sure there are other good ones out there, but there are not-so-good ones as well.
I’m not even sure how a round-bottomed wok could even work effectively on an electric stove.
I could see why some people like the round-bottom for gas burners; I prefer flat because I have more of a hot surface area to work with–I just don’t have anywhere near enough of a “hot zone” with the round wok. But on a electric range, I don’t think you would have any choice.
I set mine directly on the burner and it does just fine. The wok came with a tapered wok ring that you can be used to stabilize the wok. It’s placed over the burner wide side up for electric burners, thus bringing the bottom of the wok as close as possible to the cooking surface, and it’s placed narrow side up over gas burners to raise the wok and not crowd the burner while still allowing plenty of contact with the flame. I eventually quit using the ring altogether, though, and just stabilize the wok as needed with my left hand (using one of the wooden handles) while stirring with my right. It’s become so automatic that I don’t even think about it.
I mean to mention also about electric woks. Most (any I’ve ever known of, for that matter) don’t get hot enough, nor anywhere near quick enough. Plus they have flat bottoms and teflon interiors which, like Kyrie Eleison says, allows food to keep falling back onto the hot spot.
Starving Artist, great recipe, that looks delicious. Girl from Mars, that post was hugely helpful. I also *really *appreciate the brand name shout outs, since I’ve had some bizarrely tasting jarred/canned Asian stuff in the past.
This is a great thread!
Most of my “stir fry” comes out like an Indian-ized version of Chinese, mostly because I do stir fry the meat and veggies, but my husband likes lots of extra sauce, so I stir fry the vegetables first, then take them out, stir fry the meat, then put double to quadruple the sauce in and simmer on high heat for 4-5 minutes. It makes the meat extra tender and helps permeate it with sauce. Certainly not true stiry fry, but it works well for us.
And I hate non-stick woks. They have never worked for me. I either use my big dutch oven (higher sides help you avoid getting hot oil splatters) or a stainless steal pot.
Here’s my favorite not-really-stir-fry-but-that’s-what-we-call-it recipe:
1 pound chicken breast or tenders
1 bag broccoli wokly stir fry mix (or 2 sliced carrots & 1 head broccoli florets; 1 cup of snap peas if desired)
2 cups bean sprouts
1 large onion, sliced
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 1-inch chunk ginger, chopped
1 small bunch coriander/cilantro
1/4 cup peanuts or cashews
Sauce:
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
2 tbsp water
1-2 tbsp brown sugar
3 dried chilis (optional)
1 tbsp Sriracha or other chili sauce + more for adding on later (optional)
1 minced or pressed garlic clove
1/2 inch ginger, grated on a microplane
Can also add a splash of vinegar or gin (yes, gin; if I use vinegar, I use balsamic because of the sweetness) or mirin rice wine
Turn heat on your pan up to high. Mix sauce ingredients. Set aside. We don’t use the chilis if we’re feeding this to the kids, of course. Pour in the oil (about 2 tsp - 1 tbsp). Put in the garlic, ginger and onion and the dried chilis. Stir fry for about 2-3 minutes (chili peppers should be kind of dark to blackened - remember to keep your windows open for this part; the smoke will make you cough). Then toss in the vegetables and stir fry 1-2 minutes. Remove from pot. Throw in the chicken (also works with beef, shrimp, etc.). Stir fry 3-4 minutes (less if you have shrimp; actually, you can wait until you simmer the sauce to throw in the shrimp).
Pour in the sauce and nuts, if using, with the chicken. Cover and simmer 3 minutes. Throw in the vegetables. Cover and simmer 2 more minutes, or until you’re satisfied with the vegetables’ texture. Serve over rice.
It’s not traditional at all, but we like it and it makes chicken breast really tender and delicious.
Hey guys, bumping this, hope you don’t mind.
In lieu of a real wok, I tried my 3 quart Lodge dutch oven and got pretty good results considering the electric coil stove. I found a box at Trader Joe’s filled with over a pound of great veggies: snap peas, carrots, broccoli, onion, bell pepper, baby bella mushrooms, baby corn, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, cilantro and maybe one other thing. For $4 it would have cost almost that to put it all together myself.
Now, as far as brand recommendations go, here’s what I found: Oyster sauce: recommended Lee Kum Kee premium. Found: Lee Kum Kee, sun luck, dynasty.
Chili paste found: dynasty, kikkoman, thai ktichen regular, thai kitchen roasted.
Based on what I found for oyster sauce and chili paste, which is best?
Hoisin? Recommendations?
I found and bought Squid fish sauce. Stuff is stinky but good.
Ahh and since I didn’t buy anything but the Squid, I went with this at the grocery store in the heat of the moment Kikkoman stir-fry sauce. Very nice and light, surprisingly, not that thick surgary stuff you sometimes get at certain restaurants.
ETA: Oh, I also stir fried the onions and broccoli first with some garlic and ginger, then put the other veggies in (in batches) with some chicken and put fresh bean sprouts over the whole thing. Really tasty.
Lee Kum Kee makes a good hoisin sauce. As for chili paste, the stuff in the pantry is Thai Kitchen, I think.
You guys are the best, seriously 
Added to the grocery list just now!
I generally think you can’t go wrong with Lee Kum Kee.
If you find the Squid fish sauce stinky, I’m glad you picked that one up and not some of the other brands.
The Thai Kitchen products are really good, too, but I find them a bit pricey.