Phan’s Kitchen Know-How
YOU CAN BUY clay bowls or pots for thirty to forty dollars at
finer cookware stores or for five or six dollars in Chinatown.
Just make sure that they’re designed for cooking and they don’t
contain lead.
THE DIFFERENCE between a wok and a sauté pan is that a wok
allows you to harness heat. Food that you add to a wok will
cook quicker than food that you add to most other cooking
vessels, so prepare the ingredients to cook fast (i.e., cut them
into bite-size pieces). Anything that takes a long time to cook
doesn’t belong in a wok.
DON’T BE FANATIC about peeling ginger; as long as the skin is
clean, it’s fine to chop or grate some of the peel into a dish.