Ask about non-halal ingredients directly, not by inference
Don't guess at a candidate's comfort with pork, lard, or shrimp paste from her nationality or the way she dresses. Ask plainly whether she has cooked with these ingredients before, and if not, whether she's willing to learn and handle them in your kitchen. A short, respectful question upfront avoids an awkward discovery in the first week, and it treats her as an individual rather than assuming an answer for her.
Listen for the difference between "I haven't, but I'm willing to learn and handle it carefully" and a reluctant or evasive answer. Both are honest positions to hold, and either one is far more useful to know before hiring than after. If your household eats pork regularly, this single question may matter more to daily life than any cooking-technique question that follows it.
What a wok question tests that a general cooking question doesn't
Ask her to describe how she'd stir-fry a simple vegetable dish: how hot the wok should be before adding oil, how she keeps ingredients moving, and how she tells when something is done at that speed. A candidate with real stir-fry experience describes the rhythm of it in specific, slightly technical terms; someone without it tends to describe stir-frying the way she'd describe any other pan-cooking, without the urgency or heat-management detail that actually separates the two.
This is worth asking even for a candidate who already impressed you on general cooking skill, because stir-fry is truly different from the slower, lower-heat methods that make up much of everyday cooking elsewhere. A strong cook in one style isn't automatically a strong cook in this one, and the gap is closer to a specific technique than a general talent.
- Ask how hot the wok should be before oil goes in.
- Ask how she keeps ingredients moving and judges doneness at speed.
- If a trial is possible, watch one or two stir-fry dishes rather than relying on a description alone.
How this fits into a broader cooking assessment
These two questions add to, rather than replace, the general cooking assessment covered in the guide on assessing a maid's cooking skills: asking for specific dishes she's cooked regularly, how she learned them, and how she'd adapt a meal to any dietary restriction your household has. Chinese cuisine simply adds its own two checks on top of that general framework, because of the ingredient question and the technique question specific to it.
If Chinese cooking is one of your household's core needs, name that clearly early in the process rather than folding it into a general "can you cook" question, so both the ingredient comfort and the technique get a fair, direct check before you decide.