The physics of tossing fried rice

Fried rice is a 1500-year-old dish that is savored in both fine restaurants and as a street food. One of the secrets to cooking fried rice is the wok-tossing, the rapid motion of the wok to allow the food to be cooked at temperatures of up to 1200 degrees Celsius. In this experimental study, we report the wok-tossing kinematics of two Taiwanese restaurant chefs. The high-speed tossing motion occurs in 0.3 seconds and involves four independent stages, whose translation and rotation allows the wok's rounded sides to act like a ski-jump for the fried rice. We discuss how the wok motion mixes and cools the rice to facilitate even cooking.