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Illustration of wok and rice movements in the four phases of a 0.322 second cycle: (a) The chef tilts the front of the wok while pulling back to catch the falling rice. (b) The wok is at its furthest point from the leader (with zero translation speed); most of the rice has landed. (c) The wok is pulled towards the leader when the bow is tilted. (d) The back portion of the wok is steeply lowered, leaving most of the rice suspended in the air. Credit: Ko and Hu
Wok throwing is essential to prepare a good fried rice – according to a group of researchers presenting new work at the 71st Annual Meeting of the Fluid Dynamics Division of the American Physical Society, to be held from 18 November 20th at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
The researchers, led by David Hu, Professor of Fluid Mechanics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his PhD student Hungtang Ko, were interested in the physics of cooking and found that relatively little attention was paid to cooking Chinese. Seeking to satisfy their curiosity, they focused on saute, which is at the heart of Chinese culinary style, dating back at least to the Sui Dynasty, around 600 AD. The team is set to isolate the key elements of this venerable cuisine. technical.
As a first step, Ko videotaped experienced chefs who were cooking fried rice at two restaurants in Taiwan. The restaurant's customers assumed that Ko was making a television show, unaware that he was engaged in a serious scientific investigation. After Ko returned to Georgia Tech, he and Hu carefully followed the wok's movements during the cooking process, which lasted about two minutes, identifying continuously repeating cycles, each about a third of a second. They broke down each of these 0.32-second cycles into four distinct phases composed of two oscillating motions: a translational motion, in which the wok moves towards the head, and a rotational movement, and a rotational motion, in which wok is tilted back and forth. These two periodic movements share the same frequency but are slightly out of phase.
The net effect, said Mr. Hu, is like "return pancakes or juggle with rice. The important thing is that the rice should let the wok cool because it is very hot" , up to 1,200 degrees Celsius. The chef therefore constantly throws the rice in the air, captures it, mixes it, and then throws the ingredients again, until the mixture is cooked and perfectly golden, but not burnt.
"Once we developed a mathematical model for cooking fried rice, we realized that it could lend itself quite easily to a robotic design," Ko said. Previous attempts by robot jumpers have managed to mix the ingredients by shaking them or turning them over, Hu added, "but none of them managed to throw the rice, which prevented him from cooking at temperatures as high as necessary to produce well-charred kernels. "
The cooking of fried rice is an extremely rhythmic and exhausting activity, the greatest chefs working at the limit of human capacities. "There was an automated way to do that," Hu noted, that could be very helpful. "
Explore further:
Video: Is throwing rice at weddings bad for birds?
More information:
Presentation L28.12, "Physics of Fried Rice Throwing" by Hungtang Ko and David L. Hu, will take place on Monday, November 19 at 18:28. in room B316 of the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. Summary: meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DFD18/Session/L28.12
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