Original post from 2024-08-20.
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
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I am Chinese, family from the Canton province, whose cuisine forms the basis of many popular overseas Chinese-inspired dishes, I can explain the "why" on this.
In Cantonese cuisine there is a concept called "锅气" or "wokhei". It translates to "breath of the wok". It refers to the distinct flavours and textures that come with an extremely hot flame, because as soon as the food touches the surface of a wok which has been heated to nearly (or past) the smoke point of oil, it cauterises it and causes some interesting chemical reactions. That really means food cooks extremely quickly in that wok and by the time the outside of meat is beginning to overcook, the inside is barely done. That's also why many Cantonese dishes cooked in this manner have thin-sliced meat and not large slabs, because it would be impossible to have good wokhei and also fully cook the meat.
While it is theoretically possible to get good wokhei on an induction or electric burner, in practice it's quite difficult to do so because the cooking technique requires smacking the wok around the stove (which would damage induction and electric stoves) and it also requires the entire wok be hot which is difficult to do on induction and electric burners. That's why they have insane gas burners.
The amount of heat required to sustain the temperature needed for good wokhei is higher than what is commonly possible on home cooking ranges. While typical home methane ranges can output a respectable 5 kW or so of heat output, restaurant-grade wok burners can hit 10-12 kW easily.
The workaround is heavy flat pans. Something with the thermal inertia to impart all that energy across a wide surface area, at least long enough to do ingredients separately.
Problem is, woks are usually rounded and deep to allow better temperature control. The closer the food is to the middle, the hotter it gets. That allows chefs to move cooked food to the outside while still cooking any underdone ingredients in the center.