memorize. The last time I bought a wok I accidentally bought one
with a nonstick surface: as I scraped the food around with a metal
spatula (a tool Young recommends), the nonstick coating got all
scratched and came off in the food. With a carbon-steel wok, that
won’t happen.
The wok, for Young, is the vehicle through which she channels
her food philosophy, one that comes from her parents, Cantonese
immigrants whose cooking Young adored from a young age.
“The Cantonese are snobs about food; they think they’re the
best cooks in all of China,” she tells me as we slice beef for the
next dish. “They have year-round seasonal produce and they
honor it by cooking it super fast in a super-hot wok. It intensifies
the flavor and aroma. They don’t have to add a lot of seasoning.”
Illustrating this, she peels a few bright red ripe tomatoes that
she’s boiled in hot water for just a few seconds to loosen the
skins. She cuts them into wedges and then adds oil to her wok,
which has been heating on the stove. She adds beef—flank steak
that has been marinated with sherry, soy sauce, ginger, and garlic
—and leaves it alone for a minute as it develops color. She
removes the beef, adds the tomatoes, oyster sauce, chicken stock,
a pinch of sugar, and scallions, covers it briefly “to intensify
flavor,” then returns the beef for 30 more seconds.
The resulting dish is remarkable, once again, for its purity of
flavor. As Young promised, the flavor is intense, concentrated, and
robust.
“The technique is so simple,” says Young matter-of-factly.