Seasoning my new WOK

I was a little intimidated to season my carbon steel wok, but Tane at The Wok Shop had assured us that woks can almost always be resurrected, despite mistreatment, so I went forward.

The method I used is shown in the video, “Walking You Through Seasoning a WOK”,  by Tane of The Wok Shop:

Step 1 is to scrub the wok using dish detergent, then dry over heat.  I thought I was thorough, but when I applied oil in the next step, I noticed a grey-black carbon that accumulated on the paper towel when I spread the peanut oil  That made me wonder if I had scrubbed long enough and hard enough to remove the industrial oil.  I used a natural bristle brush from The Wok Shop, plus Palmolive.  If I did it again, I would use the steel scrub brush that Grace Young uses instead, and I would scrub it 3-4 times instead of twice, just to be sure the industrial oil is gone.  However, if I have industrial oil on mine, it is buried under a layer of peanut oil by now!

Step 2 is to coat with peanut oil, inside and out, then bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.  After the wok cooled, I scrubbed with tap water, then repeated the oil and bake step. It looked like this after 2 cycles of oven seasoning:

Step 3 involves cooking chives or scallions and ginger in a few TBSP of peanut oil until the aromatic produce is fully charred, moving the veggies up onto all portions of the sides of the wok during the process.  Keep stirring! Here is the pan after stove seasoning:

After cooking my first wok dinner it looked like this; well on its way towards developing a mature patina:

Grace Young’s video on how to season a wok is also terrific. but she skips the oven seasoning part of the process:

An article on Grace’s method is here, which has information I have not seen elsewhere:

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-season-a-wokcooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-171893