Taking a Walk with a Wok
By Pamelagrace Beatty
So, what happened was…my boyfriend bought a wok. He didn’t buy it because he always wanted to cook in a wok or even because he knew anything at all about cooking. Apparently, he thought it would be a good idea, so he bought it, and ordered a cooking-with-a wok book to help him learn how to use it. That was a good idea since, although I have cooked in a wok before, I never used a cookbook. I just threw in vegetables and meat or shrimp, seasoned it a bit and dumped it all over my rice. My concoctions were simple and more to do with what was in my refrigerator than what any recipe said. Having recipes for cooking in the wok was helpful.
I admit I thought it was a little odd for my non-cooking guy to come home with a wok. On the other hand, since his main superpower when it came to cooking was to throw something on the grill, having another cooking skill would be great; especially one that automatically included vegetables. He was not high on eating veggies. I thought, “Oh isn’t that sweet? My honey wants to learn more about cooking! We can do it together. How romantic.”
We went shopping for all the ingredients. That was fun, looking for rice vinegar and oyster sauce, and exotic spices as well as the staples in most kitchens like soy sauce, green onions, ginger root (not a staple in your kitchen? You might wish to add it), and corn starch. It was fun searching the store shelves for those ingredients. We went to two different stores to find what was needed because they weren’t standard items. We were guided by the recipe for wok-fried Honey Garlic Chicken. Of course, neither of us had ever made the dish so we were on an even playing field. Neither of us knew what we were doing but we knew we had to follow the steps in the recipe closely. It would be a delightful joint project.
Right away, it became obvious who was the chef and who was the prep person (smile). My boyfriend was good at chopping and slicing, I was good at stirring and blending. It was fun working with him in the kitchen. It was exciting creating this new dish we’d never cooked before. It was wonderful to serve it up and have it turn out to be delicious! We were both proud of ourselves for making something that tasted so good! Then we got cocky.
We decided to try another recipe, Orange Chicken. By now we had the basic ingredients and only had to buy a few special ones for this dish. I could tell it would be a different process from the other one. I told my boyfriend we would have to follow the recipe carefully. He wanted to know why we couldn’t just do it like the other one, only add some orange juice to it? “Well…that isn’t how it works,” I explained.
Like the last time, we got all of the ingredients out and lined them up on the counter in order of use – almost. Once again, he was the prep person, chopping and grating. I was the cut-stir-and-blend person. I confess, I had some doubts that this Orange Chicken would turn out like any other Orange Chicken I had gotten from a restaurant. I couldn’t see how the ingredients we were using would produce what I’d had before. Where was the crispy outer coating going to come from? Or did it even have a crispy coating? Still, I was game to give it a try. Maybe it would be a different Orange Chicken but still taste good. I should have known, when my boyfriend overheated the wok by turning it on high and turning his back on it, that a disaster was in our future! I was doing some measuring and blending of ingredients and he was in charge of getting the wok ready. He didn’t know he should not heat the oil on high. The wok quickly overheated and burned in a flash! By the time I smelled the smoke, it was too late. It took quite a while to get the smoke out of the kitchen and out of our eyes. He was embarrassed and thought he had ruined the wok. I wasn’t sure he hadn’t… Once we cleaned it and started again, we found we could still cook in it, but our troubles weren’t over.
I put him back on chopping duty and I took over cooking in the wok. Finally, the dinner was done and we poured – or rather glopped – the Orange Chicken over the rice. Yep, glop. Orange glop. There was no juicy sauce like our last dish. We both stared at our plates. Our eyes met. Our eyebrows were raised. We agreed to both taste the dish at the same time. We came to the same conclusion: This dish was not as good as the other one. Actually, it was awful but neither of us wanted to admit that. Later, I re-read the recipe trying to figure out where we/I went wrong. I was in charge of the order of things, my boyfriend was only responsible for prep. I thought I found it. I put the corn starch in with the final liquids rather than coat the chicken with it before it was fried in the wok. Yep, that must have been what produced the thick rather unpleasant coating at the end of cooking. I gave my boyfriend permission not to eat the leftovers. He was gracious about the mistake. I was gracious the next time he cooked on the grill and charred my marinated chicken almost to the bone! Once we got past the char, the chicken was somewhat tasty…I think!
Although the idea of cooking together with my love was certainly a romantic thought, the reality is that I enjoy cooking and usually do a decent job at it. And my boyfriend’s preference is that I do the cooking. So now, the romantic part of cooking is creatively preparing new meals he might enjoy. I love cooking new recipes and I’m fine with doing my own chopping and slicing. He’s fine with doing something else until dinner is ready.
We have found other ways to share romantic moments, and the best thing of all is that when I cook, he does the dishes! What’s not to love?
Feliz Navidad
