Seasoning a wok with salt--how does that work?

14 years ago

About a year ago I got a cheapo 16" wok from an Asian store. Works fine. I did the usual steps to season it--scrubbed it with detergent to remove the machine oil, then started cooking lots of fatty stuff. I've built up a decent seasoning since then, and it's fairly nonstick. A 16" wok is pretty big, though, so I recently ordered a 14" Joyce Chen wok.

I read about seasoning the wok using salt. It honestly doesn't make sense, but it seems to work. You scrub the factory coating off, then dry it well and put it over the high heat with at least a cup of salt in the wok. (see details at the link--I used a whole pound box of plain non-iodized salt) After 20 minutes the inside bottom of the wok is very dark, and the darkness extends up the sides of the wok, tapering off close to the edge.

I then shook out the salt (very hot! be careful) and rubbed the inside of the wok with grapeseed oil, which made the inside nice and black in the bottom of the wok.

I then did a stir fry (using a couple of tablespoons of lard) and it worked fine, essentially nonstick on the very first time I used it.

My question is, how did that do that? I have been told that the seasoning was a mix of polymerized oils and carbon. There's neither carbon nor oil in salt. The only thing I can guess is that the salt trapped the heat from the flame and did some sort of heat treatment to the inner surface of the wok, making it more receptive to the oil.

Either that, or the Joyce Chen wok is better quality than the cheapo I had gotten earlier and it seasons up more quickly.

At any rate, I was really surprised at how well it worked. Got a nice slick black surface on the inside of the wok that seems to work fine. I recommend this technique to anyone with a new wok.

I'm getting a slick Paderno carbon steel pan from Amazon in the near future; I may try that technique on it.

Any speculation on the mechanism of this?

Here is a link that might be useful: seasoning a wok with salt

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Comments (3)

dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
14 years ago
I don't think salt can season a wok (iron cookware).

What the pictures in your link are showing is iron oxidizing and changing color under high heat, forming various oxide layers.

If you heat up iron without salt, you will see the identical colorations taking place.

The rainbow color effect is the same as oil slick on water. First the oxide layer is very thin, (molecule thick), white light enters this layer and reflects back. The reflected light, depends on the thickness of the layer, cancels out some incoming light, depending on wave length, therefore showing different colors. This is used on camera lenses to minimize reflection and internal glare.

If you cook with a wok, I find it impossible not to have the wok well seasoned.

dcarch
claire_de_luna
14 years ago
I don't have any speculation, but I did like the explanation as provided by Tigers & Strawberries on the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wok wonderings
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azzalea
14 years ago
I have no idea--but I do know that whenever my father used our cast iron skillet to fry pancakes or french toast, he'd first heat it up with a layer of salt, then wipe out the salt and procede to cook. I sort of thought it was to remove the flavor of anything strong that might have been cooked previously, rather than for seasoning. But I don't know that I ever asked him about it--it was just one of those things he always did.

Seasoning a wok with salt--how does that work?

Comments (3)

dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m

claire_de_luna

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