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So, have you ever curse at your electric stove for not being hot enough and responsive to your cooking? Well, that’s why I specifically want and got a gas stove when I bought my new house. A gas stove does open a lot of door, cast iron pan cooking, clay/sand pot, and wok cooking! Wok cooking really bring out the flaw of home and consumer gas stove. The largest burner on my shinny stainless steel Jenn-Air only put out 14,000 BTU of flame, and the cast iron wok ring actually get the flame instead of the wok because there is too much clearance between the flame and the wok bottom.

So, meet my new Super Gas Burner:

It’s not a new age fancy cooking gadget, it’s in fact very common and traditional Chinese household stove. You see, back then not every Chinese household can afford a stove with 4 burners and build in oven. So this kind of stove/burner is what people use for everyday cooking, which explain not every Chinese household has an oven. For $40, you get a 30,00 BTU cast iron burner that has special coating to withstand from rusting. You basically connect it to a LP tank like your gas BBQ grill, good thing is it has electric ignite start up, instead of needing a match or lighter like the one I used in Malaysia :

Why is it safe to use for indoor? Because it doesn’t burn your table or counter, look at the clearance it has on the surface:

I have a 16″ wok, and check out the size of the burner ring of this thing!

Well, I didn’t count how many flame holes are there, but it sure put your home gas stove to shame!

So, how would I use it? Let see my current Jenn-Air stove. It has 5 burners with grate. I put foil around the burner because the enamel coating is just too hard to clean, and if I ever has boil over accident, it’s not the end of the world.

To have a flat surface to put the Super Gas Burner, I put my marble pastry board on the existing grate. Marble can resist heat if there is any coming from the bottom of the Super Gas Burner:

Next is to put the Super Gas Burner on the marble piece. This will allow me to put it right at the center of the existing stove, and use my existing smoke vent.

But wait, the grate and the marble add too much height, causing me to need to lift my shoulder if I want to stir fry because the wok will be way too high above my waist line. So, let try second method, remove the marble and grate:

The Super Gas Burner’s feet are high enough for me to rest it on top of all the existing burner:

Time to fire up this baby, let’s start with low/center flame, which is good for sauce pan size cooking:

Now the money shot, em, I mean impressive flame picture:

Don’t be fool by those small dot looking flame, they put out heat way high above the burner, one smart layout in the kitchen is not to have a microwave under the vent hood like most American houses do, which will give me enough clearance to put tall stock pot, or stack multiple layers of steamer tiers. Even with the head room clearance I have, if I have the burner on without any thing on it, it might burn the vent hood and cause fire, I mean you can’t really put your hand 2 feet above it for more than a minute:

Before using it, make sure a surrounding is clear. But how about the back splash of the stove? As you can see, it’s very close to the Super Gas Burner. If heat couldn’t come above the stove because of a wok, it will escape from the side while heating up the wok, so you need to protect things that you don’t want to risk damage:

So, foil is my friend again! Not only it protects the back splash, if I get lot of grease or sauce splash from stir fry, clean up is easy! Just make sure to remove it after use as the oven use that area to release steam. Oh, make sure no flammable object around, especially alcohol!

My 16″ wok sit nicely on top, looks like they were made for each other, I’m so happy!

My eight months old wok is still not fully season yet. It look dull in the picture because I have lard coating for seasoning, which solidify in room temperature.

Let’s fire up with the wok on. I have the flame down a little bit, if I turn it all the way up, the flame get intense can come up all the way to the handle side because the wok bottom deflect it that way, and there is no way I can grab the wok that way, so, can’t use full blast, which is 30,000 BTU.

The verdict is in the food it cooks. In less than 3 minutes, I can pan fried/sear a tenderized round steak as if it’s cook on a BBQ grill, the wok is so hot that the water doesn’t have the chance to release from the steak, accomplish good searing:

Here is how it operate, so I have to keep the video short because if I let it burn longer without any thing on it, I will risk burning my vent hood:

So, will I give up my 5 burner on the Jenn-Air to use only one Super Gas Burner? Yes, when I’m doing serious stir fry to feed guess, which is what I plan on doing next month. Is this better than those propane turkey fryer that put out 55,000 BTU? Yes, it’s because this stove allow direct flame contact with the wok. I have the 54,000 BTU out door burner for my 7-in-1 Masterbuilt smoker grill, and the clearance between the burner and the wok is at least 8″, so you lost a lot of heat.

Keep in mind, this method of cooking should only be attempt by serious and experienced cook, who can work very fast, be attentive and detail oriented. If you do what those people in FoodNetwork does, which is chopping things while you have something on the burner, you can kiss your house goodbye! Oh, keep a fire extinguisher near buy, you never know. One last thing, when it’s not winter, move this Super Gas Burner outside, so you don’t have to worry about clean up, risk of fire, and best of all, let your neighbor smell the food you cook! That’s part of the Asian culture, you know how good your neighbor can cook when you smell their food, and hear that sizzling noise. I mean, who want to hear that microwave beep telling people the TV dinner is ready, or the door bell ring when the pizza guy arrive?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Hmm.....Food...... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.