Wok problems are never off topic on my blog!

I really hate to say this, but you may have to scrub the seasoning off and start over with the original brand of peanut oil.

But, before you do that, give your wok a moderate little scrub with a bamboo scrubber and really hot water and a tiny, I mean tiny bit of dish soap, and then heat it up on the stove to dry it.

Then, I want you to pour a couple of cups of your good peanut oil in it, bring it to temperature and deep fry something in it. I don’t care what, though you probably don’t want to do fish, but you could do spring rolls, egg rolls or wontons or wonton noodles–anything really.

What I am hoping will happen is that a good session of deep frying will just sort of erase the little bit of seasoning that happened with the Knife Brand oil.

If that doesn’t work, scrub off and start over–that is the only other way you are going to bring your wok back from the realm of sticky annoyance.

As for the Knife Brand Oil–I have used it in the past with no trouble. It is not as highly refined as other peanut oils and it makes for great flavor, but I must say that after all of the recent cases of foods being tainted by non-food substances in China, I would probably not use any oil that acted like this. It is possible that it is being cut with a less expensive oil that may or may not be good for human consumption.

I wouldn’t use it after it acted like that, because in the past, I have never had that brand act that way. In fact, I used it for years of great stir frying.

It is not perfectly seasoned, but I’ve never had much trouble with things sticking (except oyster mushrooms, for some reason). Since the beginning, I’ve been using the Hollywood brand of peanut oil (http://www.hollywoodoils.com/products/product/785.php), inc. for the initial seasoning.

When I ran out, we were at the Asian grocery store and my partner found a huge can of another kind of peanut oil–Knife Brand, if that means anything to you. The first time I stir-fried with it, the tofu stuck to the bottom of my wok in the worst way imagineable. We’re talking a layer of burnt-on tofu gunk coating the bottom. After I was done stir-frying, I had to scrape this off the bottom of the wok with my metal wok shovel, which definitely made some scratches down to bare metal. So, I did a bit of stove-top seasoning afterward with the same oil (which may’ve been a mistake). I only stir-fried a couple more times more with that oil, with the same results, before giving up on it and going back to the Hollywood brand that served me so well before…but that didn’t stop the problem. So now I’ve stopped frying tofu (veggies don’t seem to stick, and though my sauce stuck a bit last time, it scrubbed right out easily).

I haven’t a clue what was up with that oil. Why was it so awful for my wok? I noticed it smelled more peanut-y than the Hollywood brand–less refined? I imagine it’ll be great for cooking other stuff, just not stir-fry. But at this point I’m horrified. I don’t want to have to scrub out my wok and re-season it with the Hollywood oil, but I can’t think what else would fix this problem as just switching back to the other oil hasn’t seemed to help (maybe the bad stuff just got too cooked into the metal?). My last-ditch effort is to do some stir-frying with my new supply of the “good” oil and some quick stove-top seasoning with same as well.

Any ideas? I never expected something like this to happen just from switching oils (nothing else about my stir-frying has changed)!

Chinese food, like Indian food, is one of the most diverse culinary realms to study. There is no way to learn all there is to know. I will never know everything, but it makes me just want to study all the more!

Bee–I am glad you are enjoying my blog. I love passing on what I have learned, and I am glad it has helped you.

K–Greens are ever so wonderful in Chinese stir fries.Just don’t overcook them!

- K