matador and traditional curved wok?

ifican

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  1. Bull
Anyone know if you can use a traditional wok on the matador? I know it comes with the big stainless steel flat (not really a wok but we will call it that) wok. Wife has a few very old carbon steel traditional woks she loves. If we can use them on this its a done deal, if not i will need to keep looking.
 
I have no experience with the Matador, but I would expect that the Bullseye would be perfect for use with a wok. If the woks have round bottoms, you probably would need to buy one of the aftermarket grids with a removable center section. The Bullseye gets super-hot, and unlike the Matador, uses the pellets you already have.
 
@ifican, if the pics are accurate there are three "prongs" that circle the center piece over the double burner that should hold a typical 14ish inch wok. Based on typical measurements of other components in those pics I'd guess that opening is roughly 6-8 inches. BTW, refer to the RT pan as a comal and channel you inner south of the border freak.
 
Learnt me sumfin new, but thats not unusual. I too saw the prongs. I am going to wait till tomorrow and give them a call to find out thier take (RT). And if i pick it up for the wife (who is due back in town in a couple weeks) and she hates it for whatever reason, if returns are an issue? I suspect not but figure best to ask.
 
I have no experience with the Matador, but I would expect that the Bullseye would be perfect for use with a wok. If the woks have round bottoms, you probably would need to buy one of the aftermarket grids with a removable center section. The Bullseye gets super-hot, and unlike the Matador, uses the pellets you already have.
Thanks for the idea didnt mean to seemingly ignore it. Looking at the matador because its a gas burner. We decided to pickup something like this anyways, can use for many things not just wok and i do like the giant comal (as me just learnt it today ;-) ). I can see myself using the comal for all sorta things and if the wife can use the burner for hot wok meals, its a win win.
 
And if you use it for deep fat frying it keeps the burnt oil stink out of the house. I do all my deep fry outdoors now.
 
This is the specific reason, we have a little deep fryer but the wife likes lots of different fried / wok dishes. We have a commercial stove and pretty heavy duty overhead fan but agree just plain better to do outside.
 
Ended up ordering one, will see how it looks when it gets here. Hoping can also sear on it, but we will see.
 
If you have, or end up getting, a charcoal burning cooker you can start your chimney on the burner. And, get one of those small grates from the bottom of some kamados, put it on top of the lit charcoal chimney and you've got a rocket stove that sears like crazy. BBQ is a marvelous world...……...
 
Ha just realized i never hit post reply, this has been sitting here for about a week now, Doh!!!!

If you have, or end up getting, a charcoal burning cooker you can start your chimney on the burner. And, get one of those small grates from the bottom of some kamados, put it on top of the lit charcoal chimney and you've got a rocket stove that sears like crazy. BBQ is a marvelous world...……...


Yep that works great, I should rig something up to use more often. Do have a kamado but cant use this one on it cause the gasket on the lid really doesnt like it. And truthfully, if i can turn on a knob, get a flame and sear away, im a happy camper. Will know more in about a week.
 
Matador arrives today, wife arrives Thursday night. Will know by this weekend if its a keeper or not (matador not the wife) :ROFLMAO:. Hoping to get it unboxed and checked out before she gets here but number 1 priority it to get the house clean. Office is a wreck and thats not going to change but no excuse not to have everything else in tip top shape.
 
First off just about any pot or pan will fit. It comes with a ring around the burner that is much something on your traditional stove. That is a win, however the number 1 reason we wanted it was to fry outside. With the burners on high with a medium size enameled cast iron dutch over with about 6 cups of oils, it took about 20 minutes to get it to 350 and then it strugged to keep temp at 280 with a slight breeze and 75 outside. The construction is solid, the portability is nice, just for us, the burner is inadequate. I will unfortunately have to return this one.
 
I wondered if the combined claimed rating of 18k btu was real, sounds a bit ambitious based on your real world experience. Just for reference, my CC outdoor stove is rated at 30k per burner. Takes a similar 15 minutes to get about that much oil to temp for me, which is around 400 planning for the big drop off when food is loaded. And that's at medium setting on the control knob, with a diffuser plate under the pot. I've had to work at keeping the oil temp down in that range at times, thus the diffuser. I wonder if a different regulator might be a solution?
 
Any particular reason to use a cast iron Dutch oven rather than the Matador pan? It takes more BTU to get cast iron up to temp.

I ordered a Matador, which arrives today, based on a video RT did recently where Chef John fried chicken. He kept adding the chicken in batches non stop, and the oil never cooled to the point it stopped frying. Sold me, as that’s something I have problems with using a CI Dutch oven on my 30k BTU Camp Chef.

And if it doesn’t get as hot as I would like, I expect the most common way I’ll use the Matador pan is on the Bullseye, I know it won’t have a problem keeping the oil hot.
 
So the dutch oven is what we deep fry in, cant explain why but it just works best. It would take probably 3 gallons of oil in the provided pan to have sufficient oil to cover what is being deep fried vs pan fried. the flame is interesting, it could be 18k i suspect that its close at least. Had to run the pot and oil back inside, put it on 18k burner to test it to struggled a bit, put it on the 25k burner (the one we use for all frying and high temp wok cooking) and it immediately starting raising the temp to where we had to notch it back to a med/high on the burner.

I ordered a Matador, which arrives today, based on a video RT did recently where Chef John fried chicken. He kept adding the chicken in batches non stop, and the oil never cooled to the point it stopped frying.

So we are clear, it never stopped frying, it just struggled to keep temp at 280. With chicken especially when you deep fry it vs pan fry, if you cook it to long be it from leaving it or temp not hot enough it has a tendency to dry out. The burner we use normal you get a drop then it pretty quickly starts climbing back up to temp. The matador it dropped, never really moved, added more chicken, dropped a bit more, slowly crept up to 280 and thats as hot as it would get. I love rectec and this is by no means bashing this unit. If we did alot of camping i would keep it, but alas we do not and the number 1 need / use is just not sufficient for us is all. I need to now search out something else that 1) is no bigger than the matador and 2) has a burner that is at least 30k, thinking probably slightly more would be best but that is going to have to be a minimum.
 
So, assuming you still want input from the members here, are you looking for a device that works well with traditional woks, or are you looking for an exceptional chicken fryer?

BTW, here is the link to the above mentioned YT ideo, and RT does not use 3 gal. of oil. At the 12:30 mark, he mentions he is using 6# of Crisco which is less than 1 gal. oil.

 
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yep understood my takeaway from that video is the grill is protected from the wind. The other thing is that is not traditional deep frying, its more pan frying or just frying chicken. With an asian wife there is no discussing that point. Deep frying to her is vat of oil you completely submerge your chicken in. We have a small deep fryer that works great just now looking for an all arounder. Also with that breading you can get away with that style of frying, try just oil and garlic (what we just tested with). By leaving half the chicken piece exposed it just doesnt come out right. If the wind hadnt been blowing and we were in an enclosed area i suspect we wouldnt have had the issues. Though i also suspect our setup is more normal than not. Most dont have an enclosed area to cook in. One other think i didnt mention, the wind wasnt bad, maybe in the 6mph range and not consistent, was blow backoff breeze style. The flame actually went out once, i had to grab the igniter and restart.
 
First off just about any pot or pan will fit. It comes with a ring around the burner that is much something on your traditional stove. That is a win, however the number 1 reason we wanted it was to fry outside. With the burners on high with a medium size enameled cast iron dutch over with about 6 cups of oils, it took about 20 minutes to get it to 350 and then it strugged to keep temp at 280 with a slight breeze and 75 outside. The construction is solid, the portability is nice, just for us, the burner is inadequate. I will unfortunately have to return this one.
Commercial wok burners run from 125,000 btu to 250,000 btu. Even consumer grade wok burners are typically 20,000 to 50,000 btu. 18,000 btu is still insufficient for true wok stir fry cooking. Most gas stoves in the home have at least one12,000 to 15,000 btu burner for bringing stock pots of water to boil. I'm sure the Recteq is capable at most cooking sessions but if you're really looking to do wok cooking you might want to try something with more btus. I think this is a great looking cooker though.
 
Commercial wok burners run from 125,000 btu to 250,000 btu. Even consumer grade wok burners are typically 20,000 to 50,000 btu. 18,000 btu is still insufficient for true wok stir fry cooking. Most gas stoves in the home have at least one12,000 to 15,000 btu burner for bringing stock pots of water to boil. I'm sure the Recteq is capable at most cooking sessions but if you're really looking to do wok cooking you might want to try something with more btus. I think this is a great looking cooker though.
My basic turkey fryer burner is 55,000 btu and would work for a wok if it had a ring stand and a wok with a long handle. At full blast it sounds like a jet engine and the waste heat going around the pot is tremendous.
 

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