Ken Hom Wok > Reviews (9)

Introduction
Gok Wan recently had his own cooking show which featured lots of healthy Chinese recipes. I love Chinese food but rarely actually eat it due to the calories in Chinese takeaways, so I was really impressed by how healthy and nutritious the food actually was, as well as how easy making it appeared to be. One of the items used to cook almost every dish was a wok, which is why I bought mine.

Wok vs. Frying Pan
This is my first wok and before purchasing this I had just been using a frying pan to stir fry vegetables. The difference between a wok and frying pan is actually quite substantial - firstly, a wok heats up much more quickly and it is designed to be able to endure extremely high temperatures, resulting in the food cooking faster. Secondly, woks are a lot deeper than frying pans and have higher sides, which I find very handy as this prevents any of the food that I am cooking from falling out of the pan when I stir it around - a problem that I often had when using a frying pan to cook a stir fry. The high sides also help prevent oil spitting out onto the kitchen walls and making a mess.

The Ken Hom Wok
This particular wok is part of the Ken Hom professional range. There is a variety of different woks in this range which vary in shape and size. I am reviewing the Ken Hom professional carbon steel wok which measures 10 1/2 inches. This has an RRP of £16.00.

My Opinion
I chose this wok because I am familiar with the Ken Hom brand and I am aware that he is a Chinese chef. Because of this, I knew that the wok would be well designed and hopefully as good in quality as the professional woks used in Chinese restraunts. I bought mine from Amazon and paid around £12, which I was pleased with at the time but I have since seen unbranded woks for £4 in my local B&M! As this is good quality though, I'm not complaining and I do think that you get what you pay for.

The wok is ten and a half inches in circumference and it is pretty deep. It is made from carbon steel which is quite thin and it's suprisingly lightweight. The wok has a decent sized handle which is made of steel and it has a wooden part which you grip. The wooden part is smooth and glossy and it's made from rubberwood, which is an eco friendly wood.

The handle is very sturdy and even when the wok is full of food the handle doesn't feel like it might break off when I am holding it in my hand, eg when I'm serving up the food. The handle has a metal ring on the end meaning it can be hung up, but I just store mine in the kitchen cupboard when I am not using it. The wok is available in two colours; black or silver. I opted for black as I was concerned that scratches/stains/burn marks etc would show up prominently on the silver.

The wok came in a cardboard box with a leaflet. The leaflet has all of the information needed in it along with a few tasty recipes. The wok is really easy to use and I just place it on the hob and then add my ingredients. One thing that I've noticed is that the handle is slightly heavier than the wok so it can slant to one side and wobble very slightly while on the hob, however this is only a problem when it is empty.

The wok heats up extremely quickly and I made the mistake of adding just the oil first the first time that I used it to give the oil time to heat up while I chopped up the veg and before adding the rest of the ingredients, but in about 10 seconds the oil was so hot that it was spitting everywhere and smoking, so I had to turn it off, quickly chop the veg and then turn it on again. It is very important to keep stirring the food around constantly while it is in the wok, as it will stick to the pan otherwise and burn.

This is actually marketed as a non-stick wok and it has a special coating, but food does still stick to it if it is not turned often, especially noodles. The wok cooks the food quickly and thoroughly with any juice or sauce from the food settling at the bottom. The handle of the wok doesn't heat up at all and the heat/steam that comes out of the wok goes straight up so it doesn't make me feel hot or sweaty when I'm cooking with it.

Cleaning the wok is simple and I've not had any trouble with stains or scratches, despite using a metal spatula to turn and stir the food in the wok. I fill mine with water and washing up liquid after use once it has cooled down and let it soak over night. This normally does the job in getting every last bit of oily residue etc off of it, but if it still looks a little grubby I just stick it in the dishwasher. It does take up a lot of room in the dishwasher but it is dishwasher safe and always comes out sparkling clean.

Overall
I have had this wok for around 2 months now and I am really pleased with it. It does not look worn and there are no visible marks or stains. This is a really good quality and good value for money wok and I highly reccommend it.