Wow, thanks for all the responses everyone! Arkansas girl-Yes, the burner gets super hot. Hotter, I think, than the old stove. I DO have an electric wok by Breville, that is nice. Due to grease splattering, can only use it sitting on top of the stove, under the hood. I'm a little nervous about it sitting on top of the glass, though I suppose if I were very careful, it's a possibility. Thanks! Caliloo-Will try preheating longer! Dcarch-Will check that all is working (Seems to be) and will get rid of water on the veggies, etc. Appreciate the tips. Stir fryi- I use a Calphalon wok, in fact I have two by Cal. One I hate & will probably give away, one is not bad, though not terribly traditional either, as it has stick resistant coating. The chicken has terrible texture and flavor. As I mentioned, not necessarily all to blame on my new stove, lol! Ci-lantro- You're too rugged for me! I'm a little chilly inside my kitchen as it is right now! I'm willing to work at this, but I'm not cooking outdoors! If you cook outdoors, I'd love to come sample your cooking though!(I love cilantro!) Ann-I'm encouraged that you, a gas cooking aficianado, are having good luck with your electric stove & sound pleased with it. I agree, btw, cleaning it is quite time consuming every night...looks great when I'm finally done though! Bumblebeez...HI! I hear what you are saying. I bought the second Calphalon wok because it had a flat bottom. Paid $40.00 for it, so it's not all that great a pan. Cheap stainless steel is the culprit, I think. It is, however, the ONLY flat-bottom wok I have seen. Thanks for your reply...will keep a lookout for the elusive flat wok! Doucanoe-Another satisfied customer! Thanks, it's good to hear that. Yes, the cleaning process (& it IS a process) is a bear. Rob-Yes, I may have to reach for the Breville wok and be verrrry careful placing it on the glass cooktop so I can use the vent above. Grease splatters everywhere when I stir fry! My other concern about using the wok on top of the stove is the heat not coming from the stove "shocking" the glass & breaking it. The owner's manual to this stove was very intimidating...lots of "don'ts." Momj47-Will keep looking for that flat-bottomed wok. Thanks. Johnliu-Great tips...thanks so much!! I will follow up on your suggestions. Maybe I do put too much in the pan at once. Yes, I do use a coated, non-stick wok(which in reality is very sticky, btw)...not good either. Will make more effort to reduce the moisture of all ingredients. Do y'all use chicken breast meat or thigh meat to stir fry, or does it depend on the recipe? I saw a recipe today that used thighs, & I usually use breast. Thigh meat is more tender as a rule, so I may try that too. Went to the Chinese grocery store today & wanted to ask the shopkeeper there for tips but she was just swamped, so I didn't. Was so happy to come home & find all these suggestions. I'm going to be busy trying them out! Sounds like there may be hope. Thanks again, everyone!

Oops, sorry - the second time I made this I used 2 Tbls oyster sauce in place of 1 tsp of the lemon pepper; that was my own addition and I should have taken out the reference to it. Thanks for noticing the error! It's fine with just the lemon pepper. In fact, I think the only reason I originally added the oyster sauce was that I had run out of lemon pepper and didn't have any more in my pantry! I find soy sauce way too salty, even the low sodium versions, and oyster sauce seems to 'blend' in better with other seasonings than soy or hoisin sauce does. Here's the recipe again, deleting the oyster sauce. For those who can find it, try it both ways and let us know which version you like better: Chicken Skewers with Garlic, Lemon & Mint Adapted from Roving Feast columnist Marlena Spieler. Makes two 15-inch metal skewers, enough to serve 3-4 people. INGREDIENTS 1.5 lbs chicken breast, skinless and boneless, trimming off any surface white ligament and excess fat 5 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, stems removed and chopped 1/2 cup lemon juice (use 3 small or 2 large lemons), seeds removed 1 tablespoons olive oil 2 tsp McCormick's lemon pepper or other brand Optional: only if using the cooked marinade for a sauce: 1/4 cup dry white wine or dry sherry 1/4 cup chicken broth INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Cut the chicken into 2" chunks. 2. Combine the chicken, garlic, mint, lemon juice, olive oil, and lemon pepper in a plastic container. Cover tightly. Refrigerate overnight, or up to 24 hours. 3. Remove from refrig 1/2 hr before serving. Drain the chicken, reserving marinade. 4. Place oven rack in highest position and preheat broiler on high for at least 10 minutes. Line a large flat cookie sheet, big enough to hold both skewers, with foil. Spray with cooking spray. 5. Thread the chicken cubes onto two 15-inch skewers. Place on cookie sheet, spray again with cooking spray. 6. Broil chicken skewers for 7 min. on one side and 3-4 minutes the second side. Let rest on a platter 2-3 minutes. 7. Add the chicken broth and sherry to reserved marinade. Bring to a boil over high heat for 3-4 minutes. Thicken with cornstarch, or just cook over medium heat until reduced to 3/4 cup. Taste for seasoning, then cover or low heat to keep it warm. Garnish chicken with additional chopped mint, if you wish. Serve the sauce on the side. A Romescu or Thai/Indonesian spicy peanut sauce is also good with this.

"Toss, stir, seems to me that's just semantics. Of course we're not talking about a motion like stirring oatmeal. " Actually not exactly. Stirring is moving ingredients around a pan for a better mixing of ingredients and to even out cooking, while tossing is to flip all ingredients upside-down to brown the opposite side. "Your first quote could be read as being inconsistent as well. First it says the wok will "allow heat to distribute evenly and prevent the formation of hot spots" and "the sloping sides distribute heat evenly among the food being cooked", That explanation is not a thorough explanation. If you look at the cut-away photo I posted of a wok on a stove, you will understand better what is going on. The quote should have said the design of the wok allows GRADUATED temperature evenly spread out from the hot center to the colder edge of the wok. This is an important feature of the wok. It allows the following: a. It allows the chef to perfectly control temperature for each of the ingredients. b. The round shape of the bottom also allows the wok to be tilted to shift the hot center to other areas. "---So if we can agree on the latter, it would seem we need a lot of movement to get even results. And if the home range isn't powerful enough to give a proper sear with this method, then a wok is a poor choice for the home, wouldn't you say? ----" Based on the above and the Chinese style of cooking, uniform heat distribution is not required or desired. "----Wouldn't you be better off spreading out the food on an evenly heated flat pan? And now we can call it sauteing. Is that term used in Chinese? ;-)" I saw on TV sometime ago Jacques Pippin was cooking something. He mentioned that sauteing actually came from stir frying. I have not tried to verify that information. In a wok, you can fry food in oil and then push the food to the side to drain off most of the oil. Great for making crispy bacon, something you cannot do with a flat pan. You will be soaking you food in oil, fat or butter. The shape allows cooking very small quantity to very large quantity. There is a round grill attachment that goes on the wok for deep frying. It drains the oil right into the wok. This works much better than draining oil on paper towels because oil flow much easier when hot on top of a wok. A wok's unique geometry lends itself to many other interesting uses. The Chinese use it for steaming, boiling, deep frying, smoking, etc. dcarch

It's hard to make generalities about over 1 billion people, lol. But I have found that there are many, many Chinese families who don't stir-fry at all, or do it very seldom. Not every American family eats burgers and hot dogs, either, for a local analogy. I guess if others judged American culture by TV ads and billboards, they would think we all lived on a daily diet of McDonald's Big Macs! But in general, many Asian cuisines do have a "triple path". There is home cooking; there is restaurant cooking; and there is banquet, or feast, food. I was talking to my Hong Kong-born Chinese-Portugese DH a few weeks ago, and he (finally) remembered to tell me a story about one of his uncles who died over 15 yrs ago. This uncle was famous in the family for making the Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, or ho yau gai lan as it used to be spelled (I'm terrible with the new spellings, sorry). I've done this dish, and it seems very simple. Blanch the gai lan, stir-fry it quickly, drizzle it with oyster sauce. What's so hard about it? DH told me his uncle was so meticulous and painstaking about doing this dish, it was intimidating even to just watch him. Every cut had to be a precise size, the water had to be just the right temperature, the timing was down to the second. The wok had to be heated for XX number of minutes with just enough oil but not too much; the tossing and last-minute steaming done always the same way. In six decades of eating, DH says his uncle's gai lan remains the best. And every time, because he was so exacting about it, it was always perfect. But it was a lot of work, done to ensure that nothing was left to chance. He very seldom made it, in fact. Just the news that there was going to be a party and that Uncle had promised to make his gai lan, was enough to make everybody, even reluctant-to-socialize teenagers, show up for dinner! Oh, and outside of the gai lan, hardly anyone in DH's family, all 200+ members in Vancouver BC, stir-fries. Most of them don't even own a wok, which is interesting because otherwise they've kept their HK culture intact very assiduously. Unlike the American relatives, all of whom by the second generation barely remember their Cantonese, all the Canadian relatives speak Cantonese at home, so that even the fourth generation little kids are bi-lingual.