In fact these exist -- if you search for "induction wok burners" you can see some pictures. (I only recently became aware of this after watching this video of a chef who uses induction cooking in a small kitchen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooNzRrHA9VY)
Perhaps in the future there will be cooktops that include a wok depression on the surface, similar to how some gas stoves today include a built-in wok ring.
The food is constantly flipped into the air above the wok where it is heated by the extremely hot air.
Of course very few homes in the western world have gas burners powerful enough for that anyway. I actually practice on a turkey fryer.
I am not a cook, but I find it difficult to believe that the heat going by the sides of the pan is cooking the food, rather than the heat going through the pan and heating the air above the pan.
This is because where I've seen someone cooking on a wok, the food barely goes past the edge of the pan.
A sufficiently wok-shaped induction stove will induce the same heat as that going through the pan.
I can’t find a high enough resolution pic on the internet of the modernist cuisine cutaway to actually read the text but here’s the image:
https://images.app.goo.gl/cZWmqecLWTSdxSeX6
Wok Hei translates to “breath of the wok” for a reason. The food is constantly in the air, which allows it to dry out. The food spends most of its time not even touching the wok so no, you can’t do it on induction.
Here’s a good description from the Michelin guide:
https://guide.michelin.com/en/article/dining-out/what-is-wok...
Thank you for treating my ignorance!
Since in order to keep it in the air you have to constantly raise the pot from the cooker, and since induction can't work too far, it is clear why it doesn't work.
And there’s no way most of us in the west would know this. Not many people outside of the kitchen a Chinese restaurant would ever see someone do it right here. Most of us just treat a wok like a funny shaped pan.
I’ve been trying to learn the technique for a few years and I’m not great at it.
In a home context its irrelevant. You're not doing true wok cooking at home anyway, your piddly little small bore home gas feed won't be providing anywhere near the required intensity.
It's mostly a restaurant thing to have burners that powerful.
You're correct, but times change, and the carbon steel wok over a giant burner isn't very suitable for apartment cooking anyway. There are now works designed for use on induction (with aluminium conduction to achieve a heat gradient), and they work pretty well. Also much healthier for the occupants, not as hot in the kitchen and cheaper to operate.
In countries with 240v/10A sockets a plug in electric wok is fine for home cooking. On 110v/15A it is still better than electric radiative cooking, but not as good as gas.
This perspective drives me crazy. OK, so induction cooktops are good for the environment. But flat bottom woks are not woks, and you can’t do wok cooking on an induction cooktop. The only people who think that you can, are people who completely lack an understanding of wok cooking techniques.
I know for a fact that you are arguing from a position of ignorance here, because it is physically impossible for an induction cooktop to replicate what gas provides a wok, which is hot air, something induction surfaces don’t produce. So I’d recommend that you do at least a small amount of research on the topic before you resort to such low effort (and hilariously inaccurate) ad-homs.
I would have thought that a bigger drawback would be that you can’t get even heat input while tossing the wok, though I’m not sure how essential that is
See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Induktionskochfeld_S... for what's under the plate. The center silver thing is likely a thermostat/temperature sensor. The electronics may need to be a bit less ignorant to handle a flexible coil, but tracking the tank's resonance isn't even a difficult task; a Royer/Baxandall oscillator could probably be made to work.
I don't mean this to sound rude, though I know it will, but this is the literal definition of "argument from ignorance."
You don't use more than two burners, so you don't know why a stove needs more than two.
I personally frequently cook with three or all four burners. Further, there are meals where I might use the two small back burners, and meals where I might use the two large front ones.
I guess you could be describing a need for stoves that came with just two burners, for those who couldn't imagine using more. But, seriously, would you have bought a two-burner model if it had been available, knowing that you might have wished for more even one night a year?
There are also down considerations of power (wiring and maximum output) and noise (induction units have fans, which are less noticeable in stovetops), safety (accident risk from cables, tilting, etc) and convenience.
It might work if your everyday usage involves zero to one units. Which is certainly possible, if you don't cook much, but even if you are and you're using other heat sources like a rice cooker, oven, grill, microwave, etc.
Not a terrible idea to have one around when you're limited by your normal capacity, or when you want to simmer a stew at a buffet, or your stovetop breaks or you are redoing your kitchen.
Aor of Indian households when preparing a traditional lunch will have 5-6 items (in the south, particularly in a Brahmin household, you will have one sambhar, one rasam, three vegetable currys, rice, and a fried item usually appalam). This entire meal takes three hours or so to prepare from scratch on my stove (a three burner lpg stove). Two more usable burners will cut this down to about 2 hours
This is not even remotely typical.
> This is not even remotely typical.
Digress!
What is typical?
It is always good to learn about people's lifestyles....
It's hard to make broad generalizations. But having been to all six divisions and having lived in three of them, I feel very confident in saying that a household that cooks three different curries, sambar and rasam for a single meal is very atypical. What GP described sounds closer to a restaurant set course meal and not something a household would cook on a day to day basis.
So, they had 5 burners?
Anyways, my comment was more about the number of dishes. Two curries as in your example is fairly typical. Three curries, a sambar and a rasam like the GP said is definitely not. Chai at lunchtime does sound strange to me but then again, I'm not really familiar with Punjabi culinary preferences.
The practical reason is that people have different sized pots and pans. I don't want to put my small sauce pan on a large burner that will waste the majority of its heating surface. Similarly, I need a large surface to heat a big pan.
The aesthetic is that a lot of cooktops are combination stove/oven and thus have to be big enough for the oven bit. Once you already have that surface area, you might as well fill it up to make it seem more substantial. A stovetop with room for 4/5 burners will look like the manufacturer skimped out if it has only 2 burners.
I could play hockey in it too!
https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Pro-Logic-Handles-14-inch-Black...
There is no such thing. A round bottom is a defining feature of a wok. If it doesn’t have a round bottom it isn’t a wok by definition. A round bottom is essential to how a wok is used.
> There is no such thing.
Here's[1] Kenji talking about a "flat-bottomed wok". My Chinese friends cook on a flat bottomed wok and call it a wok. So I'm sorry, but your linguistic rigidity is misplaced.
I’m not saying that large flat bottom frying pans with high edges aren’t useful, I have one and it’s probably my most used pan, it’s just not a complete replacement for a wok.
This is the wok:
https://kenhomwoks.com/store/products/ken-hom-excellence-car...
It performs one essential function, it needs both a round shape and has to be made of thin sheet steel. You can only have one if you need to place it on a flat induction stove: either it’s thin and flat on the inside, or it’s round on the inside but thick.
you need the round bottom to be able to scoop up the food and churn it. Try using a spatula on a flat bottom "wok" and flip the food to churn it - it doesn't work very well.
There's also an edge between the flat bottom and the round sides. This causes food to get "stuck" there under high heat - leading to burning. A wok is round all the way, so the spatula scrapes everywhere evenly, and you leave no burnt bits.
A flat bottom "wok" is just a pan with high edges.
> Easy tossing for stir fry is just one feature of a wok. For example, the round bottom causes liquids to pool in the center.
The idiom comes for fighting battles with absolutely devastating casualties to capture positions of very low strategic importance. Establishing consensus that woks may only have round bottoms may fulfil the last part, but having people write a few counter-arguments is by no means a devastating loss, it’s just the discussion forum serving its intended purpose.
鑊 (pronounced wok in Cantonese) or 炒锅 or 炒勺 means wok.
sides stay far too cool.
luckily I don't do it that often so just bought one of those butane table top burners for those cases.
It's amazing, way better than our old gas stove. I'll never go back.
but you need a flat bottom for such a "wok" to sit - otherwise a round bottom wok isn't close enough to heat up evenly.
Blame your induction heater or induction wok.
I can only recommend such tactics for messy cooking; it's indeed the real "killer" feature of induction that even gas can't match.
Edit: pretty sure this is the wok, definitely the correct brand. https://kenhomwoks.com/store/products/ken-hom-excellence-car...
But with an induction range, or a ceramic glass range, the knob controls temperature, i.e. there's a thermostat somewhere that regulates the power. And this gives you a lot more control, especially at lower temperatures. But it's not unique to induction ranges, any ceramic glass range can do the same, although they have more "lag" than an induction range.
There are gas hobs that make it easy; I like my cooktop with FlameSelect exactly for this, it has 9 discrete positions and exact flame size for each position.
I found a flat-bottomed induction compatible wok on Amazon when I got my induction cook top. I'm not a master stir fry cook, but it woks for me!
I always thought gas was the best for cooking. But I was wrong - induction is. Gas is great for medium-high power cooking, but it falls apart for lower temps, and it's very hard to get it consistent. The only time I really miss gas is when stir frying - you can't really use woks on induction.
It's also wipe clean!