5000 Years of Culinary Tradition

Pardon my dirty stovetop, but is this not the most ingenious thing you've ever seen?

Father of Food bought a traditional iron wok some time in the early 1970s, which I've had and kept seasoned for the past fifteen, twenty years or so, and for all these years, we've gotten along just fine with the simple metal ring that supports the wok over the fire. But at our new apartment, the ring just doesn't work. If I set the ring on the metal grate and the wok on top, it's just a little too precariously balanced, and if I dispense with the ring, it's even more unstable. This can be pretty disconcerting when you've got a wok full of oil at the smoke point and a toddler running around. If I put the wok on the ring directly on the stovetop without the grate, as I've done with some other rangetops, the wok is too close to the flame and isn't centered properly.



So today I was at one of our local Chinese markets, and for a mere six dollars, I found this heavy iron grate for supporting a wok that replaces the regular grate. That's the regular grate on the back burner, and the wok grate on the front burner. The wok is much more stable on this thing than it ever was on the metal ring, and it's just the right distance from the flame.