Wok: Round or Square?


 
Never used a square one and never saw a square one in all of my visits to China / Japan.

I vote for the round one as it will be much easier to "stri fry" in without having corners for the food to gather.

Ray
 
I vote with Ray, I too have never seen a Square Wok. I lived in Asia for 5 years and then Travelled an worked in Asia for 33 weeks of the year for a few years. Never saw a Square Wok.
I use the Weber 22 1/2" SS wok on my Performer/Kettles and a round 12" wok on my Genesis. I cant imagine how difficult it would be to get the swirling motion required for some Wok dishes. Do yourself a favour - don't even contemplate any thing other than a round Wok. Make sure it has deep sides and a flat bottom. If you can get it with a long handle all the better if you are not used to cooking with one. You also need a proper Wok tool it is like a long handled solid stubby egg flipper/spatula with a rounded bottom edge to fit the profile of the Wok.

Update

I just looked at Amazon to check what you are looking at. The "Square Wok"s that you see on Amazon are in actual fact deep sided grilling trays not Wok, a deep sided Vegetable grill tray and a shallow sided fish grilling tray. Weber also has them. I use one for char grilling vegetables and the low sided one for char grilling seafood - prawns, fish, mussels, oysters, octopus and the like. These are a completely different product to a real Asian Wok.

It depends on what you want to cook in them as to what you buy.

What dishes do you want to cook?

Regards
 
Nathan,

One other piece of advice. I would get the deepest wok you can find. I ofter use my wok on the stovetop when I am searing a good piece of sushi grade tuna. The deep sides contain and control a lot of the grease splatter and makes stove top clean up easier.

Also, get a steamert basket that will fit in the wok.

Ray
 
I lived in Asia for 5 years and then Travelled an worked in Asia for 33 weeks of the year for a few years.
Very interesting Phil. What did you do there?

For a three year period I travelled to Asia once or twice a month. I was responsible for building fibers plants there, and had facilities under construction in Turkey, India, Singapore, China, and Japan (plus Germany, Holland, Ireland, Luxembourg, and the USA).

After retiring, I took a 6 month consulting job in China. Overall wonderful experiences in Asia.


Ray
 
I'd like to use it to grill vegetables over the grill. Sounds like the round one is the best choice...and yes I have done stir-fry before on the the stove. Just wanted to try it on the grill.

In my experience, your wok is never quite big enough.
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Ray
Very interesting Phil. What did you do there?
I lived in Malaysia fron early '72 to late '74 and early '78 to late '80 when I was serving in the RAAF. I worked in Asia from mid '99 to early '03. I was initially Regional Manager Asia Pacific Major Projects for Snap-on Tools and then Regional Manager Asia Pacific - Power Tool Group for Snap-on Tools.

Out of all the jobs that I have had and currently have, the best job has got to be demonstrating for Weber Australia of a Saturday between September and December every year. Life just doesn't get better than that.

Regards
 

 

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