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The Wok, a bowl shaped cooking pan, is instrumental to traditional Chinese cooking. While a wok is not a necessity for everyone, you should definitely go out and buy one if you plan to make Chinese food regularly in your kitchen. The traditional Chinese wok looks like a large metal soup bowl with handles on both sides. If you’ve ever been on the inside of a Chinese kitchen, you might have seen cooks using woks as large as four-seater round tables. Nowadays, flat bottomed woks are also easily available in the market and you also have a large variety of materials and styles to choose from. Some tips that will help you in becoming an expert with the wok are:

Buying a Wok: There are a number of things that you need to consider before buying a wok. For one, the shape of the wok is important because a round bottomed wok might end up harming your cooking range if you use electric burners. On the other hand, a flat bottomed wok can work perfectly well on such a burner. Then comes the material of the wok. You will find woks made of stainless steel, carbon steel, iron and non stick ones. While traditional Chinese cooks swear by carbon woks, if you are a modern cook, you can do just as well with a non –stick one. You will save your self a lot of hassle by buying a heavy non stick wok that allows for equal heating all over. It would give you a similar performance as a carbon steel one but will be rust free and cook food faster.

Seasoning your wok: In case you follow after traditionalists and buy a non stick, iron or carbon steel wok, then you will first have to season it. Seasoning is important because it removes the residual oil left on woks by the manufacturer to prevent rusting. In order to season your wok, first wash it with a fat removing detergent properly and dry it. Then put it on a low flame and let it heat up. Soak a kitchen towel with a little amount of cooking oil and rub it on the inside of the wok. After the wok has been heated for at least ten minutes, rub the towel on the wok again. You will see your kitchen towel turning gray black. Keep repeating the process till your towel comes away clean. Wash it with water, dry it and your wok is ready for use whenever you want it. You will not need to season a non stick wok because it will not rust anyway.

Cooking With a Wok: Keep these tips in mind when cooking with your wok to get the best results—
• Put food in the wok only after it has heated up properly.
• Keep everything prepared because you will find that food cooks very fast in the wok.
• Use the wok for deep frying because it is much more efficient than regular sauce pans and deep fryers.
• When deep frying, put food to be fried into the wok only when the oil is hot enough (it should form little bubbles when you put food in it), otherwise your food will turn out to be full of oil. 
• Use wooden spoons—slotted spoons for deep frying and spatulas for other purposes even if do not use a non stick wok. It will save a lot of commotion while you keep stirring food around in your wok!