23
February
2007

Greasy Art

1 Votes | Average: 2 out of 51 Votes | Average: 2 out of 51 Votes | Average: 2 out of 51 Votes | Average: 2 out of 51 Votes | Average: 2 out of 5 (1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)
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I fried some chorizo the other day for dinner. That’s spicy Spanish sausage. Then I left the sausage grease in the pan overnight. When I got up the next morning, it had congealed. I already had some hot boiling water in the kettle, so I poured some into the frying pan to turn the fat back to liquid while I did the other dishes. When I got around to cleaning the frying pan, it looked like this…

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The red (from the paprika in the chorizo) grease had formed itself into perfectly evenly spaced circles in the water.

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I’ve forgotten most of the chemistry that relates to how oil and water interact with each other, but I’m fascinated with self-organizing systems. I thought it worthy of a picture and a blog entry.

1 Comment

  1. jacob UNITED STATES:

    I love how you say “Then I left the sausage grease in the pan overnight.” as in you were purposely conducting a science experiment. Something tells me that if we asked Marga why this dish was not separated from its contamination promptly after dinner she wouldn’t scream, “For Science, of course!”…:)

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