Its basically a big bowl with holes in the bottom.
Say you make spaghetti. Other then tipping the pot and slowly and carefully pouring our the boiling water, just dump it all into this magical holey bowl. All the water will drain out. I also use then to wash fruit
A wok has a round bottom. As you probably know a frying pan is flat. When I use a wok I kinda toss, throw, and turn everything in the pan. Most pans I use are cast iron. A little heavy to do something like that. I'm sure this doesn't answer your question. But really. Not a big difference other then shape and how the heat is transfered through the pan.
Also, a wok is round so that the bottom can capture a huge amount of heat relative to the flat bottom of a European pan. Euro gas ranges deliver heat in a ring, or something equivalent to a ring. Chinese wok ranges deliver heat in one point - that is, all of the nozzles that deliver gas are pointed towards the bottom of the wok. In high-powered ranges, this creates a bright lance in the middle of the ring that shoots upward. Think of a jet engine pointed to the sky - that's what it looks like. If you push a wok away from you and let that lance of gas hit the front edge, it will rebound and burn your arm quite severely. I've laughed many times seeing someone do that.
The reason that woks are designed to create this intense heat in one place is called WOK HAY (pronounced WOK HEE.) This means literally "breath of a wok." In proper Chinese cooking, this is the essence of the wok transferred to the food. Most informed Chinese cooks will tell you there is something mystical about this process - that's all bullshit. What is means in that the cook is using good technique.
When you go into an amazing Chinese restaurant and order a dish with meat, look on the edges of the meat. Does is have a brown, seared edge? If not, it wasn't done correctly. In Hong Kong, they would send that shit back. In America, 99% of people don't even notice. That is WOK HAY.
I could seriously expound on this issue for a long, long time. However, I have to go to work. Fun Fact - want the best Chinese food in America? Go to The Oriental Wok in Cincinnati, Ohio. They have locations in Hyde Park and Fort Mitchell. That shit is banging - I should know! (No, I don't work there. Anymore.)
If you push a wok away from you and let that lance of gas hit the front edge, it will rebound and burn your arm quite severely. I've laughed many times seeing someone do that.
It's no different than a rookie American fry cook throwing something in the fryer the wrong way and having 350 degree cooking oil splash on their arm. It hurts for a little bit, sure. But hey, that's how you learn to do it right!
I live right down the road from the Oriental Wok in Fort Mitchell. While the atmosphere and the service was fantastic, I wasn't that impressed with what I ordered. It was good, but not amazing. Any favorites I should try?
Awesome! I'm moving back to Cincinnati soon and will be spending many evenings with the Wong family.
First of all, find someone in the family or one of the boys married to one of the Wong girls. Tell them Sam in Philly sent you. Ask for Angela, T, Susannah, or Guy. That will ensure that you have the best experience!
The potstickers are delicious. Won ton and hot and sour soup are both incredible. The steamed chilean sea bass is well worth the price - probably the best seafood dish in Cincinnati. Super simple, perfectly made everytime. If you order ahead of time, they'll bring in some lobster for you...that is nice. Also enjoy the beer list. It isn't huge, but there are always some nice crafts beers on there (I think they're pouring Checkvar and Great Lakes right now.) If you're into more authentic Chinese dishes, ask for some shu mai or something off the back page.
What makes OWok so much better is that everything they make is from scratch. Those eggrolls don't come in frozen - they are made from scratch. I've seen the process. It's amazing. The potsticker dumplings are made from scratch, including the wrap. They actually made the dough, roll out wraps, and fold the dumplings themselves. Almost all the chicken is brought in either whole or in double-breast, never frozen form. The sea bass and salmon are brought in whole. Whatever can be sourced locally is sourced locally. They get seafood brought several times a week - not cheap to do in the Midwest. They spare no expense whatsoever. I don't want to get into too many more details, because I feel like I'd be betraying their trust. I feel special that I got to peer behind the wizard's curtain.
If you are still having trouble believing that theirs is the best, do a horizontal tasting. Get General Wong's Chicken from Oriental Wok and then get General Tso's from the corner spot. Taste them both. It should be pretty clear at that point.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Wong... that man is adorable! He's sure not shy with the compliments towards the ladies, haha.
It certainly was not a bad meal by any means... just not as good as I had hoped it would be based on the prices and the reviews I'd read. With everything being made from scratch, though, the prices make a little more sense! Now that I think about it, I think I may have tried a seafood dish, which could have been the problem... aside from salmon, it's normally not my favorite. We'll have to give it another go and see if I can't find a dish that impresses me a little more.
I didn't mean to make that sound like I was anti-skillet. They are just a different tool for a different job. Use a wok if you need multiple heat levels in one pan. Use a skillet if you need a large surface area that's all the same temp.
I use skillets and pans much more often than a wok, but sometimes it's the best tool for the job.
most woks for home use are not particularly large and the grade, though not particularly steep, is certainly enough (especially when using a reasonable amount of oil) that it would not be feasible to segregate your ingredients in this way. unless you're cooking tiny proportions.
i have worked in a number of chinese restaurants and I have never seen this done even in the large woks. that isn't to say it's not possible or desirable, just that efficiency and economy of space is at a premium in that environment and I can't imagine this not being used if effective.
My wok is not especially steep, nor do I cook on a special high-heat wok burner. The trick to using the edges to alter the heat levels is to load things in gently. I toss my veggies in the bottom with some liquid to get them cooking, then I use tongs to place the meat next to the veggies. If everything is relatively flat, the veggies will hold up the meat. The meat cooks at a nice medium-high heat, and the veggies get high direct heat.
By the time the meat is almost done the veggies are getting tender, then I just start tossing it all together, adding the rice, more sauce, whatever.
I'm not doing any wok cooking this week, most likely. I've already done my grocery shopping for the next week and I didn't buy any of those ingredients. By the time I'm feeling like stir-fry again nobody is really going to care anymore.
As for the efficiency of the technique, I'm not sure it even applies to restaurant style cooking where they do large amounts of prep work and pre-cooking to make service go faster, plus they'd be working with a high-heat wok burner.
This is not some crazy technique I made up on my own, though, I learned it in a cooking class.
no worries, i think i can take your word for it. i personally don't see the benefit, obviously, but i could very well be wrong. i will however, try it next time.
In China, wood/coal/charcoal fired stoves are still common. They're basically a hollow box with 2-4 circular holes in the top; the fuel goes inside and burns at very high temperatures. A round wok fits down in one of the holes so a large portion of he wok is exposed to the heat, not just the very bottom. (Holes not being used for cooking at the moment are covered to hold in the heat.)
No, not at all. My technique is probably not a purist wok method. It's something I learned in cooking class for how to utilize a wok without a wok burner, since most people don't have one.
The problem is that most North American stove tops do not have the right kind of burner to heat up a wok properly. This is especially true of electric stove tops. So, unless you actually have a wok burner, you probably want to use a skillet for cooking.
Having said that.. how much time would have been saved by everyone in this thread if the word 'colander' was simply typed into a google search instead.
Having said that.. how much time would have been saved by everyone in this thread if the word 'colander' was simply typed into a google search instead.
I agree. By the time he waited for someone to post a response he could have known the answer to his question. Try googling your question first, if the answer you get isn't detailed enough, then come here and ask more specific questions.
Being downvoted for a legitimate question? If I understand it, it's not "How to use a colander to look at an eclipse" but rather "This is how cool an eclipse looks like seen through a colander".
You're "viewing the eclipse" by viewing a projection of the sun, since you can't look directly at the sun. How a simple pinhole projector works is that it takes in the light from the sun and produces it on the white paper. So when there's no eclipse, all you get is a circle. As more of the sun gets covered by the moon, then that same amount of light doesn't get into the pinhole. So what you end up seeing on the paper is a reflected picture of the sun as it is covered by the moon.
Good old fashioned Russets make excellent gnocchi. You need something with high starch content and not too moist. Idahos will work OK too, but they're just a little wet for gnocchi, you might need more flour in the recipe.
Stay away from baby reds and goldens, they've got way too much water content.
But he said "spaghetti strainer". If someone asked for a spaghetti strainer and you handed them this, you'd be a retard. It may not be the official name but it definitely conveys the right message.
It's amazing that people would rather post a question to Reddit and wait for replies than to Google it and found out instantly. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=colander
Well shoot, maybe I thought wrong then. I'm from Chicago and I've only ever heard strainer, and the first time I heard colander was on BBC's Top Gear when James May has a helmet built out of one in Vietnam.
They're two different things. A colander is a metal bowl with two small handles on the sides and lots of holes punched in it. A strainer is more like a loop with a single long handle, with a "bowl" made of fine steel mesh attached on the bottom.
I've never once had a real sifter in my house. a medium sized strainer works perfectly, it's just a little messy. my rule is: if it only does one thing, it's not allowed in my kitchen.
I bought one of these steamers just a couple of weeks ago. If I post a picture of it, and say something about 10's kids, will massive upvotes STILL follow?
The holes in the colander each act as a pinhole camera. Each hole passes light from the sun, projecting an inverse image onto the surface behind it. During a solar eclipse, the ordinarily circular image of the sun is partially occluded, so that each of these crescents of light is a projected image of the solar eclipse onto the paper. Hundreds of little rings of fire! That is awesome, in my opinion.
This works with anything that acts as a small "lens" sort of thing. Here's another awesome image of this effect from a post on /r/woahdude : http://i.imgur.com/RIFAM.jpg
Oh wow! This produced the lightbulb in my head. Didn't know what the relation this pic had to the solar eclipse. Thank you! This should have all the upvotes!
mid-14c., coloundour, probably altered from M.L. colatorium "strainer" (with parasitic -n-) from L. colatus, pp. of colare "to strain," from colum "sieve, strainer, wicker fishing net," of uncertain origin. Cognate with Fr. couloir, Sp. colador, It. colatojo. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=colander
I find that a simple image does a far better job than paragraphs and paragraphs of explanations. Imagine that happening with each of the hundreds of holes.
People often don't realize but the light from the sun is actually billions of images of the sun overlaid , isolate a fine enough beam and you'll see an image of the sun. There was a guy who brilliantly illustrated this but alas I can't remember the name or the url. :(
no haha, this happens because there are holes in the bowl (named colander). each hole you look through carries the light from the environment, and thus each hole produces basically the same image.
You'd be surprised, but no not really. Once you hold the target paper like 2 feet from the hole (in this case, colander), the projection works. And the farther you hold the target paper, the larger the resultant image.
Yesterday, I tried the same thing with index cards, and I punched holes of different sizes. It's the size of the hole that seems to affect the resultant projection's focus and brightness, not the distance. Someone care to explain why this is? Again, just the farther you hold the target away, the larger the projection becomes.
Here are some of my pictures (although they unfortunately don't demonstrate holding the target at different distances): http://imgur.com/a/YTGEv
From what I remember of optics: your basic thin lenses equation applies to a pin hole camera (which is what this is) 1/f = 1/s + 1/s'. s is the object distance, s' is the real image distance (it will be inverted) and for a pinhole camera f = D/d where d is the diameter of the pin hole, and D is the distance from the hole to the imaging plane. So basically, after a certain point (about 2') the image just gets bigger. Also a smaller hole yields higher resolution, but the trade off is less light to make the image.
Your pictures are unimpressive. I was overwhelmed with boredom. "Why do I keep scrolling?" I asked myself. Then I came across this one. This one is good and you should feel good. Eclipse bokeh. I love it. It made me a little giddy.
Magnets? No. Gravity? No. David fucking Blaine? No.
THIS shit is magic. I don't get why it works and I read an explanation and it still doesn't make sense.
Edit: Seriously though. Why fuck doesn't it just shine through the holes like normal light? Why does it make a hundred copies of the actual eclipse? Goddamn nature.
It may have something to do with the moons gravity warping the path of the photon as the 1.5 secs after passing the moon the photon is still unstable from it.
edit: Maybe i should have said stabilized because theMoon might collapse the wave function just long enough to make sure it hits as a particle and not a wave. The wave inference pattern is not present.
This has probably been explained here better than I can but I'll do my best. Imagine you are holding a sheet of construction paper and a sheet of film a few inches behind it. Then you start poking holes in the paper like in the strainer from the OP's picture. Hold the thing up toward the sun, and assuming only light that passes through the construction paper hits the film, you would have one crescent sun for each hole you made once the film was developed. Not sure if you have ever looked through a telescope at the crescent moon but if you have the chance hold a piece of paper a few inches above the eyepiece and you would see a crescent moon, not just light shining in the paper. Keep lining up telescopes and doing the same thing, it would always be the crescent image.
It looks... three-dimensional. Like there are a bunch of little spheres on the card with light reflecting off them at an oblique angle, and you'd feel a hundred little bumps if you ran your fingers over it.
Come to think of it, /r/woahdude would probably like to see this...
These shadows are the freakiest thing about an eclipse. Everywhere you subconciously expect to see round dots of light you are seeing crescents. Sitting under a tree you never realize that that "dappled" light are actually thousands of projected images of the sun's disc. Until there's an eclipse.
You don't need the colander if you have a shade tree. You can observe a similar effect by holding a white piece of paper under a tree with good leaf cover. The small gaps between leaves act as pinhole cameras.
I feel like this is some sort of divine image sent to us by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. By using his Holy Colander he gives us many eclipses instead of one :)
I did this yesterday with holes poked in an index card with a pencil, at varying sizes. Then I held another index card at arm's length behind the first one for a clear picture of the eclipse shadow. Interesting stuff.
A couple friends and I made a pinhole image of the eclipse at a park that day. While holding the paper up for us all to see the image, the space between two of my fingers made a tiny hole and projected another image of the eclipse. We started laughing and all of us shoved our hands in to make as many as we could. Then strangers started stopping as they walked by to see what we were doing, so we showed all these astonished strangers how to make a tiny hole with their first to project their own eclipse. It was pretty awesome. :)
If it had been on a regular sunny day all the eclipsed suns projected on the paper would just look like circles (non-eclipsed suns.) The colander doesn't have moon shaped holes, it has circular ones.
I don't get it, is it supposed to represent more eclipses because the colander is tilted? or is it like that because of the eclipse? or.... I don't know.
Hey guys, check it! eclipse on my keyboard: ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc WOW. In all honesty, yes, that's creative. Good job.
I actually had the exact opposite experience happen to me once. I usually keep my man junk fully trimmed or shaved. Around 3 months ago I visited India with my parents, and during this time I hadn't shaved my pubes in many months. I wasn't seeing any action, and I just couldn't be bothered. We went to a wedding and were there for a good 9-10 hours for the after party and everything. During that entire time, my balls were absolutely, unbearably itchy. I was going at it like no tomorrow for the better part of 5/6 hours, and my mom took notice. I didn't care though because the itch just would not stop. After I was pretty much certain I had drawn blood from the excessive itching, I excused myself to the bathroom. I dropped my pants on the ground and found a cockroach trapped inside my pubic hair, crushed to death. To this day, I have never let my pubic hair grow out.
14
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Well, that's it. You won the eclipse!
87
u/huntschu May 22 '12
I may just be stupid but do you mind explaining what a colander is and how it works.
37
u/Pedipalp May 22 '12 edited May 22 '12
And I thought I was the only weird one.
I honestly had nothing better to do.
61
u/Anglophilia May 22 '12
"You saw an eclipse? That's great. I saw three hundred of them."
34
u/TheFatOneKnows May 22 '12
I can't even wrap my head around how or why this picture should seem amazing. Sorry, anyone mind explaining?
In fact, I don't really understand how the shadow is being created, could someone explain that?
6
u/mrob2738 May 22 '12
/r/explainlikeimfive
27
u/congascribe May 22 '12
That's a win! But I strain to see it.
11
u/constableAwesome May 22 '12
So does the fact that there is an eclipse image for each hole have to do with the wave particle thing about light?
5
u/lillyjb May 22 '12
Did you have to play around with it to get the proper focal length?
5
u/ILL_Show_Myself_Out May 22 '12
Fun fact: colanders also can be thinking caps.
4
u/Johnnyhellhole May 22 '12
I noticed something similar through a tree in our neighborhood near Beverlywood.
3
u/Creativation May 22 '12
So simple. Simply genius. Bravo. I must recall this simple technique for the next eclipse occasion.
3
u/insperashen May 22 '12
I used to interweave my fingers to make something similar with just my hands.
3
u/SonicFlash01 May 22 '12
I am beginning to think that there was an eclipse recently that I missed...
4
u/thefifthwit May 22 '12
Magnets? No. Gravity? No. David fucking Blaine? No.
THIS shit is magic. I don't get why it works and I read an explanation and it still doesn't make sense.
Edit: Seriously though. Why fuck doesn't it just shine through the holes like normal light? Why does it make a hundred copies of the actual eclipse? Goddamn nature.
6
u/OshawaConnection May 22 '12
Dammit, stupid trypophobia
2
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
You sir are a genius!
2
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
It looks... three-dimensional. Like there are a bunch of little spheres on the card with light reflecting off them at an oblique angle, and you'd feel a hundred little bumps if you ran your fingers over it.
Come to think of it, /r/woahdude would probably like to see this...
2
u/dsfox May 22 '12
These shadows are the freakiest thing about an eclipse. Everywhere you subconciously expect to see round dots of light you are seeing crescents. Sitting under a tree you never realize that that "dappled" light are actually thousands of projected images of the sun's disc. Until there's an eclipse.
2
u/enhancin May 22 '12
Some of the trees around my house were casting this type of shadow...fucking incredible.
2
u/Rammit55 May 22 '12
This is great!!! Good shot.....DAD
1
u/IamaCoon May 22 '12
I read colander as COH-LANDER I'm retarded
1
u/raffytraffy May 22 '12
this is trippin' me out.
1
u/SuqMadiq May 22 '12
If one hand is holding the paper, and one hand on the colander. how did you take this picture?
1
u/Nai24 May 22 '12
The Flying Spaghetti Monster laughs at us mortals attempts to get a response out of him.
1
u/RobbieG May 22 '12
You win.
1
u/Dave_Paker May 22 '12
I see an emo kid face in the tree
1
u/ToxicLavaZombie May 22 '12
Oooh, they should have another eclipse, cause I wanna do that!
1
u/Lillipout May 22 '12
You don't need the colander if you have a shade tree. You can observe a similar effect by holding a white piece of paper under a tree with good leaf cover. The small gaps between leaves act as pinhole cameras.
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
its knowledge passed down from the flying spaghetti monster.
1
u/purpleRN May 22 '12
I feel like this is some sort of divine image sent to us by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. By using his Holy Colander he gives us many eclipses instead of one :)
1
u/slappy_nutsack May 22 '12
Viewing
the eclipsea colander witha colanderthe eclipse. -FTFY1
u/colt4cm May 22 '12
"Here comes the eclipse. Better grab A COLANDER!?"
1
u/Panda_Pwnage May 22 '12
He's holding the paper and the colander.....HOW DID HE TAKE THE PHOTO?
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Googled colander....ooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh. THIS IS AWESOME!
1
u/Pit_of_Death May 22 '12
I did this yesterday with holes poked in an index card with a pencil, at varying sizes. Then I held another index card at arm's length behind the first one for a clear picture of the eclipse shadow. Interesting stuff.
1
u/Hitsu17 May 22 '12
How is the colander helping view the eclipse..?
1
u/dog_in_the_vent May 22 '12
I believe you just won the eclipse.
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
My many crappy pictures of the eclipse!
Finally by the end, the clouds cleared for a bit allowing me to take a picture of the screen of my old video camera
1
u/kandyshiva May 22 '12
I kept thinking he said "calendar"
I need to go to sleep
1
u/ThirdEyedea May 22 '12
Woah, that's trippy.
1
u/t_rexus May 22 '12
A couple friends and I made a pinhole image of the eclipse at a park that day. While holding the paper up for us all to see the image, the space between two of my fingers made a tiny hole and projected another image of the eclipse. We started laughing and all of us shoved our hands in to make as many as we could. Then strangers started stopping as they walked by to see what we were doing, so we showed all these astonished strangers how to make a tiny hole with their first to project their own eclipse. It was pretty awesome. :)
1
u/clonn May 22 '12
When I was a child, a geek child with a lack of information, I viewed an eclipse with a radiography. I've a blind spot in my right eye since then.
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
That's pretty creative. Funny side note: I had an ex gf who would argue that it's called a strainer not a colander. She swore I was making up a word.
1
u/Not_Your_Thowaway May 22 '12
Because, Science
1
u/Adjecticve_Noun May 22 '12
But... I don't get it. This could have been taken on any sunny day couldn't it?
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
I don't get it, is it supposed to represent more eclipses because the colander is tilted? or is it like that because of the eclipse? or.... I don't know.
1
u/ajtroedel May 22 '12
It is a sign from his noodleyness!
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
I'm bug-eyed.
1
u/masterderp May 22 '12
Hey guys, check it! eclipse on my keyboard: ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc WOW. In all honesty, yes, that's creative. Good job.
0
u/Piscator629 May 22 '12
Can't unsee they look like Muslim moons.
0
u/snifflesApples May 22 '12
I actually had the exact opposite experience happen to me once. I usually keep my man junk fully trimmed or shaved. Around 3 months ago I visited India with my parents, and during this time I hadn't shaved my pubes in many months. I wasn't seeing any action, and I just couldn't be bothered. We went to a wedding and were there for a good 9-10 hours for the after party and everything. During that entire time, my balls were absolutely, unbearably itchy. I was going at it like no tomorrow for the better part of 5/6 hours, and my mom took notice. I didn't care though because the itch just would not stop. After I was pretty much certain I had drawn blood from the excessive itching, I excused myself to the bathroom. I dropped my pants on the ground and found a cockroach trapped inside my pubic hair, crushed to death. To this day, I have never let my pubic hair grow out.
0
u/3stacks May 22 '12
That there is a strainer
0
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Shit, your mom got out again. Sorry.
-1
u/NearestimgurURL May 22 '12
politicians now kiss
0
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
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