The Wok

Recipes and Techniques

By: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin

The obsessive mastermind behind one of the decade's best-selling cookbooks returns with the definitive English-language guide to the science and technique of cooking in a wok.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's debut cookbook, The Food Lab, revolutionized home cooking, selling more than half a million copies with its science-based approach to everyday foods. And for fast, fresh cooking for his family, there's one pan Lopez-Alt reaches for more than any other: the wok.

Whether stir-frying, deep frying, steaming, simmering, or braising, the wok is the most versatile pan in the kitchen. Once you master the basics - the mechanics of a stir-fry, and how to get smoky wok hei at home - you're ready to cook home-style and restaurant-style dishes from across Asia and the United States, including kung pao chicken, pad Thai, and San Francisco-style garlic noodles. Lopez-Alt also breaks down the science behind beloved beef chow fun, fried rice, dumplings, tempura vegetables or seafood, and dashi-simmered dishes.

Featuring more than 200 recipes - including simple no-cook sides - explanations of knife skills, and how to stock a pantry, The Wok provides endless ideas for brightening up dinner.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 J. Kenji López-Alt (P)2022 Tantor

Tons of good info - thoroughly enjoyed!

I have this cookbook and got the audio version to listen to on my way back and forth to work. I don’t have enough free time to read through the entire book but was able to get all of the info from it by listening to it. Now I can use the book for the recipes but have all of the background info in my head. This works perfectly for me!

There is so much valuable information and techniques. The book, whatever the version, is fabulous!

Reader is terrible.

Makes it almost hard to tolerate. Book content is great, very authoritative. Need to re-record using same reader from food lab.

Correction…

My bad for hinting in my prior review that it might have been the author who confused Saturday Night Live and Saturday Night Fever. Tonight while reading through my stained and tattered hard copy of The Wok, I saw that the passage in question clearly states, “…Saturday Night Fever…”. It was the reader who mistakenly said “Saturday Night Live”. Sorry Kenji!

This is a fantastic book.

I have the hard copy as well. But it’s so text heavy that I wanted the audiobook as a companion. My only complaint is that the person reading it is so stiff and clipped in their reading it’s painful to listen to.  It almost sounds like it’s AI reading it. Talk about a disappointment. I love this book but I’m really having a hard time getting through the audiobook version.

Beyond excellent

I'm always hesitant to buy a "cook book" in audible format for obvious reasons but Kenji really nailed this one. I've always had electric stoves so wok cooking was not a thing for me. I know Kenji says it can be done but my results have always been dismal. Soon after starting this book I bought a carbon steel wok and butane burner. The results have been spectacular and I'm just getting started! The pdf of recipes and techniques stands as a work on it's own.

Great book but don't love the narration

I wish more cookbooks were available as Audio books. I love Lopez-Alt's thorough explanation and attention to detail. I didn't love the narration. It wasn't that the narrator wasn't a fine narrator, but he was a poor choice for this book. The narration packed the laid back spirit that the author has. I wish Kenji narrated the book himself. Then it would be perfect. Still a good buy and I enjoyed it.

Does not work as an audio book

The content is great and the narration is very good, but unfortunately I find this title does not really work as an audio book. Listening to the technical stuff is interesting but I found I would like to have it in writing to review and highlight. Furthermore, listening to recipes turns out to be rather boring.

There is a large pdf (364 pages) you can download with lots of recipes and some of the technical stuff. Obviously, it is not the entire book and things like the overview of "Stocking a wok-friendly pantry" with suggestions for different sauces and pastes is not included (you can review this with the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon). I would have liked that in the pdf.

I appreciate the effort of trying to make this into a good audio experience with a generous pdf to boot, but unfortunately it does not work for me and I gave up listening after a couple of hours and ended up returning it and buy the hard copy.