My Kit | The Flat-Top Wok — Everything I Use to Cook Chinese on the Blackstone
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My Kit

Everything I use to cook authentic Chinese food on the Blackstone — the griddle itself, the sauces, the ingredients, and the tools. Nothing on this page is here unless I actually use it and genuinely recommend it.

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Affiliate disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I actually use — this page exists because people ask me what I cook with, not to sell you things you don’t need.
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⭐ The Most Important Purchase

Blackstone 36″ Griddle

This is the whole point of the channel. The Blackstone flat-top griddle produces the heat that no home hob can — the heat that makes Chinese food taste like Chinese food. If you’re serious about cooking authentic Chinese at home, this is the tool that makes it possible.

“I use the 36 inch 4-burner version. The size matters — you need the surface area to cook fried rice and stir fry properly without overcrowding. Overcrowding is steaming, not frying. Get the big one.”
Buy on Amazon → Blackstone Website →

Every product below has been used in at least one video on this channel. If you’ve watched a recipe and wondered “what sauce is that?” or “where do I get MSG?” — it’s on this page. The full amounts and how to use each ingredient are in the individual video descriptions.

🔥 Griddle Accessories
The tools that make cooking on the Blackstone easier and better results every time.
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Essential
Griddle Tool
Blackstone Griddle Spatula Set
The wide flat-edged spatula is essential for pressing down rice and noodles and getting under food cleanly. The standard spatulas that come with the griddle aren’t wide enough for fried rice.
“I use two spatulas simultaneously for fried rice — one to press, one to flip. The wider the better.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Essential
Griddle Care
Blackstone Seasoning & Cast Iron Conditioner
A well-seasoned griddle is everything. This is the official Blackstone conditioner — use it after every cook to maintain the non-stick surface and prevent rust.
“Season it properly and it gets better with every cook. Skip it and you’ll be fighting rust and sticking food within weeks.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Griddle Tool
Wire Cooling Rack (Small)
I use this to rest cooked eggs and proteins on the griddle surface while cooking other components. Keeps everything warm without overcooking. Seen in the egg fried rice video.
“Small wire rack, sits directly on the Blackstone surface. Simple but genuinely useful for keeping components warm.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Temperature
Infrared Thermometer Gun
Point it at the griddle surface and get an instant temperature reading. Invaluable for knowing when your surface is genuinely hot enough before cooking — removes all the guesswork.
“For fried rice I want the surface at 230°C minimum before the rice goes on. This tells me exactly when I’m there.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Griddle Care
Blackstone Griddle Scraper
Clean the griddle surface between components while cooking. Essential for keeping the surface clean and preventing flavour transfer between dishes.
“Scrape it clean between the protein and the veg — you don’t want the burned bits from the beef in your noodles.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Cooking
Squeeze Bottles (Set of 6)
Pre-fill with oil, soy sauce, and water. Fast, controlled application on the griddle surface. Looks professional and genuinely makes cooking faster and cleaner.
“Pre-fill one with oil, one with your sauce mix, one with water for steaming. Game changer for the pace of cooking.”
Buy on Amazon →
🥫 Chinese Sauces
These are the sauces used in every recipe on this channel. Get the free sauce guide in the description for exact ratios and when to use each one.
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Essential
Sauce
Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Sauce
The most important sauce in Chinese cooking. Deep, savoury, slightly sweet — it’s the backbone of almost every stir fry sauce on this channel. Don’t substitute it.
“Lee Kum Kee Premium is the one. The standard version is fine but the Premium is noticeably richer. Worth the extra penny.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Essential
Sauce
Light Soy Sauce — Pearl River Bridge
For seasoning and colour. Light soy is your everyday workhorse — it goes into marinades, sauces, and finishing. Pearl River Bridge is the brand most Chinese restaurants use.
“Light soy for seasoning, dark soy for colour. Never use one when the recipe calls for the other — they do completely different jobs.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Essential
Sauce
Dark Soy Sauce — Pearl River Bridge
For colour and a slightly deeper, more molasses-like flavour. Use it sparingly — a little goes a very long way. This is what gives fried rice its characteristic dark colour.
“Dark soy is not stronger than light soy — it’s different. It’s for colour first, flavour second. Don’t overdo it.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Essential
Sauce
Sesame Oil — Kadoya Pure
A finishing oil, not a cooking oil. Goes in at the very end after the heat is off. Kadoya is the Japanese brand that most professional Chinese cooks use — it’s pure and intensely flavoured.
“Never cook with sesame oil — the heat destroys the flavour. Add it at the end, off the heat, and it lifts the whole dish.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Sauce
Shaoxing Rice Wine — Pagoda
Chinese cooking wine. Adds complexity and a slight sweetness to stir fry sauces that nothing else quite replicates. Used in beef and onion, chow mein, and most meat dishes.
“Most home recipes leave this out. It’s the ingredient that makes people ask why your version tastes better than theirs.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Sauce
Lee Kum Kee Black Bean Garlic Sauce
For black bean dishes — chicken in black bean sauce, beef in black bean. Bold, salty, deeply savoury. A staple of Cantonese cooking and one of the most popular dishes on any Chinese takeaway menu.
“Use it sparingly — it’s very powerful. A tablespoon goes a long way and transforms the whole dish.”
Buy on Amazon →
🧂 Key Ingredients
The ingredients that appear in recipe after recipe — the ones worth having permanently stocked in your kitchen.
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Essential
Ingredient
MSG — Ajinomoto
The ingredient every Chinese restaurant uses and most home cooks avoid unnecessarily. A small pinch adds the rounded savoury depth that makes restaurant food taste the way it does. Safe, natural, and genuinely transformative.
“Every Chinese restaurant uses it. Every recipe on this channel uses it. Ajinomoto is the brand — it’s what the professionals use.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Essential
Ingredient
Cornstarch — Large Pack
Used in almost every recipe — in velveting marinades to coat the meat, in sauce mixes to create that glossy coating, and to thicken sauces. Buy a large bag, you’ll go through it quickly.
“Cornstarch is the difference between a sauce that coats and a sauce that runs off. Use it in everything.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Essential
Ingredient
Bicarbonate of Soda
The secret behind velveted meat. A tiny amount in the marinade breaks down muscle fibres and produces genuinely silky, tender beef or chicken that no other technique can replicate.
“Quarter teaspoon per 200g of meat. No more — too much and it tastes soapy. Get the amount right and the texture is incredible.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Ingredient
White Pepper — Ground
Not black pepper. White pepper has a completely different flavour — earthier, more fragrant, authentically Chinese. Once you switch you’ll understand immediately why the takeaway tastes different to home cooking.
“Black pepper is for steaks. White pepper is for Chinese cooking. They are not interchangeable.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Essential
Ingredient
Vegetable Oil — Large Bottle
High smoke point, neutral flavour — exactly what you need for griddle cooking at high heat. Buy a large bottle because you’ll use significantly more than you expect when cooking on the Blackstone.
“Don’t use olive oil on the Blackstone — it burns at these temperatures. Vegetable or sunflower oil only.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Ingredient
Garlic Puree — Large Jar
For speed during cooking — garlic goes in fast on a hot griddle and burns quickly. Having pre-made puree means you can add it precisely and quickly without the risk of burning.
“Fresh garlic is always better but on a screaming hot Blackstone it burns in seconds. Puree gives you more control.”
Buy on Amazon →
🍚 Rice & Noodles
The right rice and noodle makes a significant difference to the finished dish. These are the specific products used on the channel.
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Essential
Rice
Long Grain Rice — High Quality
The base of the 2:1 blend used in every fried rice video. Long grain separates properly when cooked and fried — short grain goes sticky and clumps on the griddle.
“Buy from a Chinese supermarket if you can — the quality difference is noticeable. Look for jasmine or fragrant long grain.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Rice
Thai Fragrant Rice — Golden Phoenix
The second rice in the 2:1 blend. Adds fragrance and a subtle flavour without making the rice sticky. Golden Phoenix is the brand used in the channel — widely available online.
“1 part Thai fragrant to 2 parts long grain. That ratio gives you the perfect fried rice texture every time.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Essential
Noodles
Fresh Egg Noodles
For chow mein. Fresh noodles make a significant difference over dried — they fry better, char better, and have a better texture. Find them in the refrigerated section of a Chinese supermarket.
“Fresh noodles over dried every time for chow mein. The texture difference is not subtle — it’s the whole dish.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Noodles
Flat Rice Noodles (Ho Fun)
For Beef Chow Fun — the wide, flat rice noodles that are the signature of this Cantonese classic. Hard to find in standard supermarkets — worth ordering online or visiting a Chinese supermarket.
“You cannot make proper Beef Chow Fun without these. There is no substitute — the width and the texture is everything.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Equipment
Rice Cooker — Instant Pot or Similar
Perfect rice every time without watching a pot. A good rice cooker keeps rice warm for hours without drying it out — invaluable for meal prep and batch cooking rice for the week.
“I use a rice cooker for every video. It frees up your attention for the cooking that actually matters — what happens on the Blackstone.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Nice to Have
Equipment
Metal Cooling Rack + Tray Set
For cooling cooked rice quickly before refrigerating. Spreading rice on a metal tray cools it in around an hour — essential for day-old rice prep for fried rice.
“Spread the rice thin on a metal tray and it cools in an hour. Then straight in the fridge. Perfect fried rice rice every time.”
Buy on Amazon →
🔧 Kitchen Tools
The prep tools that appear in videos — the ones that genuinely speed up and improve the cooking process.
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Essential
Prep
Digital Kitchen Scales
Accurate measurements matter in Chinese cooking — particularly for velveting marinades and sauce ratios. Every recipe on this channel uses weights not cups or spoons for the key ingredients.
“A gram scale that measures to 0.1g accuracy is worth getting. The difference between 1/4 tsp and 1/2 tsp of bicarb is the difference between silky and soapy beef.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Essential
Prep
Sharp Slicing Knife — Chinese Style
Slicing beef thin against the grain, slicing chicken into even strips — a sharp knife makes the prep faster and the result more consistent. A dull knife produces uneven slices that cook at different rates.
“The prep is 50% of the cooking. A sharp knife makes it faster and the results more consistent.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Prep
Stainless Steel Mixing Bowls — Set
For velveting marinades, sauce mixes, and ingredient prep. Stainless steel over plastic — easier to clean, food-safe at all temperatures, and they last forever.
“I have three sizes on the counter whenever I’m filming — protein marinade, sauce mix, and veg prep. Keeps everything organised.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Recommended
Prep
Mandoline Slicer
For slicing onions consistently thin — the half-moon cuts in the beef and onion video. Consistent thickness means consistent cooking time. Faster than a knife once you’re comfortable with it.
“For onions specifically — consistent slices cook evenly. Thick and thin mixed together means some are raw when others are burned.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Nice to Have
Prep
Measuring Spoon Set — Accurate
For MSG, bicarb, white pepper — the small quantities that make a big difference. A proper set of measuring spoons is more accurate than eyeballing and matters most in velveting marinades.
“The small amounts matter most. A proper set of measuring spoons costs almost nothing and removes all the guesswork.”
Buy on Amazon →
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Nice to Have
Storage
Glass Prep Bowls — Small Set
For mise en place — having every ingredient measured and ready before the griddle gets hot. When you’re cooking on a screaming hot Blackstone you need everything ready. No time to measure once it’s hot.
“Have everything measured and in bowls before you turn the griddle on. Once it’s hot, you cook fast. No time to prep.”
Buy on Amazon →