"Peter Aitken" > wrote:
> I have not tried one but cannot imagine that the enameled surface would be
> good for stir fries. I have done a lot of wok cooking on an electric stove
> and have two suggestions. One is to get a standard thin steel wok with a
> flat bottom and set it directly on the element. This works quite well and
> you can slide it on and off the element to control heat. The other is to
get
> a cast iron wok (again with a flat bottom). Holds the heat well. Le
Creuset
> is in fact cast iron beneath the enamel.

I've got the large 14" Le Creuset wok. It is indeed enameled, inside and
out. Mine is black, which at least at the time I got mine a decade ago came
with an unusual matte black enamel finish inside and out. I believe the
other colors have this same matte black enamel on the inside, and a gloss
enamel like normal Le Creuset on the outside. The matte enamel finish can be
seasoned more or less like unfinished cast iron from my experience. I
haven't used mine enough to really build up this surface as much as I would
like, but it is definitely forming. The brown seasoning looks a bit
different against the matte black enamel than it would against the liight
gray surface of raw carbon steel of a normal wok.

There are other cast iron woks (enameled or not) out there besides Le
Creuset which are much cheaper if you look on the net (one of places I
remember off the top of my head is www.wokshop.com). The one nice feature of
the Le Creuset wok is that it is flat on the bottom outside, but rounded on
the bottom inside. It should definitely work on an electric stove.

Normally the whole controversy comes up that cast iron woks are "not
authentic". From what I've read, cast iron woks were common way, way back,
though not now. One disadvantage of cast iron is that it does not respond
quickly to changing the heat. But I like the fact that with the large mass
of it, the temperature does not drop so quick when food is thrown in. The
wimpy burners on my old gas stove can't keep the temperature up with a thin
steel pan. There's a huge amount of metal in the base of the Le Creuset wok
between the flat outside bottom and the rounded inside bottom.