Can a 35K BTU home wok burner improve food taste, and mimic restaurant wok hei?
Many Cantonese restaurant chefs advise me to install a wok burner, even in my home, to procure wok hei 鑊氣. But "commercial wok burners blazes at over 100,000 BTU/hr!" "[A] wok burner can deliver up to [...] 200,000 BTU/h of thermal power."
But are these chefs wrong? Because HOME wok burners discharge merely ≤ 35K BTU, too little to be a "professional wok burner (which would likely require expensive ventilation upgrades for use indoors)"!
What can a ≤ 35K BTU wok burner accomplish, that a gas burner or electric induction cooktop can't ? What's exclusive to a ≤ 35K BTU wok burner ?
1 answer
This question appears to be trying to create controversy.
If you want to make a specific style of food, you may need specialized equipment. Certainly, specialized equipment makes certain things easier, or faster, or even possible. But most specialized equipment has cheaper, more general-purpose alternatives.
Suppose you want to make ice cream. You can use a PacoJet, a Ninja Creami, a Cuisinart ICE-100, an ICE-BCP1, or a wood ice-salt churner. The range of prices is about a factor of 100. If you are building a high-end modern restaurant kitchen, you buy the PacoJet because you need to turn out 200 exactly duplicated sage-onion sherbet portions every night. If you make ice cream three times a summer, the churner is probably a good option.
For people who can't afford the time, space, or cost of a propane jet engine in their kitchen, but would like a cost-effective alternative:
https://www.seriouseats.com/hei-now-youre-a-wok-star-a-fiery-hack-for-stir-frying-at-home
(TL;DR: blowtorch techniques)
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