This is one of our woks. They are, as you might gather from this one, well battered and seasoned, and the outside is pretty much carbonised now. They never see soap – I wash them with water, then heat them on the hob to boil it off, then add groundnut oil, heat till it spits, then pour the oil away and wipe it out (carefully) with kitchen paper.

perlmonger does something complicated with oil and salt; both methods seem to work fine, and the woks continue to give excellent service after many years. I dread the thought of having to break in a new one, to be honest.

I know there are non-stick woks, which seem to me to be an Abomination. Let us not even go *near* the prospect of Electric Woks, which surely are in this world only to irritate people, for you surely couldn’t actually cook a stir fry in one.