Tonight I wanted to try out my new toy, A Kamado Joe cast iron Wok. I liked its shallow shape with a nice gentle slope to push food onto as it neared completion. It arrived nicely pre-seasoned and ready for use after a quick cleaning. Seasoned rice was prepared in a ceramic on cast iron pot in advance. Beef strips were placed in a marinade about 2 hours prior to the cooking. The marinade was basic, just brown sugar, a bit of soy sauce, some sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, some Szechuan rub and water. Half of an onion was diced, and some mixed vegetables were prepared in advance. The Big Joe was loaded with fresh charcoal and lit in 5 places with the lower vent was opened about 1 inch. The lid was left open for the fire to get going into a full raging roll. The X-Rack was put in place. A couple tablespoons of canola oil was put into the wok and lightly smeared across all the surface. As the wok got up to temperature the finely diced onions were added to the wok to caramelize. As the onions neared completion, they were pushed to the side (away from the central sweet spot) and the marinated beef was placed in the center of the wok. Once the beef was nearly done, the vegetables were added along with a bit of the marinade to lightly steam them. A thick sweet savory glaze was added to the entire dish after the food was done, and gently folded until all of it was well coated. The rice was plated and a generous portion of the stir fry was ladled on top of the rice.
