Missing the taste of Chaoshan fishcakes inspired a measurable exploration of family cooking experience. Click the 3D equipment and work through seven steps, starting with the ingredients. New tools appear when you need them.
- Weigh: Add fish, then weigh water and salt separately, one ingredient at a time.
- Mix: Pour the ingredients into the mixing bowl and watch the fish turn into paste.
- Shape: Take a portion of paste, press it into a round mold, then move the raw fishcake to the conditioning plate.
- Probe and condition: Insert the probe from the side to the center. Close the lid, then adjust relative humidity with humidified or dry airflow. The reduced-pressure experiment controls pressure separately; vent before opening the lid.
- Water bath: Choose the water temperature, immerse the sample, and record simulated core temperature and treatment time. This step demonstrates heat-induced gelation.
- Plate: Move the same sample from the conditioning plate to the test platform.
- Compress: Use force and deformation to describe the sample’s physical response.
How to play
Drag with your mouse to orbit and use the scroll wheel to zoom. Click a station label to move closer. Space performs or pauses the current step. During conditioning, use “Pause experiment” to freeze readings. Opening this notebook also pauses the experiment; close it and click “Resume experiment” to continue. Press 1–7 to visit unlocked stations, F for fullscreen, and Esc to close this notebook. This version is for desktop browsers only.
Why these heating temperatures?
Different heating methods require different medium temperatures. A Dahao fish-ball feature published by the Guangdong government describes cooking in 80–90°C water. This is a fish-ball process reference, not a recipe for every Chaoshan fishcake.
The game defaults to a research reference of a 90°C water bath for 30 minutes. Li et al. (2022) studied Bombay duck surimi, heating samples directly in a water bath in casings with a 36 mm flat width. The 90°C value is the water temperature, and 30 minutes is the study’s treatment duration. The game’s 90 mm fishcake differs in size and recipe and has not been experimentally validated. The 80–90°C slider enables comparisons; changing it no longer reproduces the study’s original conditions.
The bath is assumed to be preheated at the start. A 24-second animation represents 30 minutes of virtual treatment. The page records the water setpoint, simulated water temperature and simulated core temperature separately. The run ends after the selected duration; it does not require a core temperature of 87.2°C. Real cooking requires a validated recipe and timing, confirmed with a real food probe. Paste binding and gelation are not microbial fermentation.
Model limits
All recipe percentages are relative to the fixed 200 g fish mass. Kitchen humidity provides the chamber’s initial conditions; chamber RH cannot be converted into fish moisture content. The sample’s color is illustrative and does not indicate doneness. Flavor still requires real experiments and blind tasting.
ESP32 and the conditioning chamber
The development board follows the official ESP32-DevKitC V4 / ESP32-WROOM-32E dimensions and layout: 48.26 × 27.94 mm, with two rows of 19 pins at a 2.54 mm pitch. The board shares the same millimeter scale as the 90 mm diameter, nominally 18 mm thick fishcake. Close-ups move the camera. Small components and traces are illustrative, not manufacturing drawings.
Humidity sensing uses a model of the Adafruit SHT31-D STEMMA QT Rev C (2857) board, measuring 25.4 × 17.78 mm. Its four mounting holes, seven solder holes, JST SH connectors and SHT31 chip layout follow the official open-source board design. The sensor sits inside the chamber; the ESP32 stays outside. VIN connects to 3.3V, GND is shared, and SDA / SCL connect to GPIO21 / GPIO22. This board measures air temperature and humidity, not pressure. The page is a learning simulation and is not connected to physical hardware.
Relative humidity (RH) depends on water-vapor partial pressure and saturation vapor pressure at that temperature. Evacuation controls total pressure and does not guarantee a specific RH. Humidity and reduced-pressure controls here demonstrate room-temperature conditioning; heating is separate. The chamber, pump and probe fittings illustrate principles, and no pressure rating has been validated for a real device.
Insert the temperature probe from the side along the mid-thickness plane toward the center. The green target zone is an interaction tolerance. Real probes still need calibration based on sensing length, response time and insertion depth.
References
Guangdong government: Dahao fish balls in 80–90°C water ↗
Li et al. (2022): Bombay duck surimi, 90°C bath for 30 minutes ↗
Adafruit: official SHT31-D STEMMA QT board design ↗
SHT31-D pinouts and power logic ↗
Espressif: official board layout and pinout ↗
DevKitC V4 official dimensions ↗
Vaisala: humidity, temperature and pressure measurements ↗
USDA: food thermometer placement ↗
Fishcake chopping and gelation research ↗
Food texture analysis methods ↗