Shaoji
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Shaoji (Simplified Chinese: 筲箕; Traditional Chinese: 筲箕; Pinyin: Shāojī) is a kitchen utensil: a shallow colander or strainer woven from thin bamboo strips (竹篾). It is a familiar tool in Chinese home kitchens for rinsing grain, draining washed vegetables, and holding food above a basin or sink so water can run off. It is not a dish.
Form and use
A typical shāojī is round or slightly oval, with an open weave that lets liquid pass while retaining rice grains or cut produce. Handles or a raised rim make it easy to shake or tip. Households also use metal or plastic colanders for the same jobs; the bamboo form remains common where bamboo craft is local and where cooks prefer a light, breathable basket that does not trap steam against drained rice.
Encyclopedic outline of kitchen practice—not a cooking recipe: cooks rinse raw rice in the shāojī, or scoop partly boiled rice into it so cloudy rice water drains into a pot or bowl below. The drained rice can then return to a wok or steamer.
Role in Kong Fan
In classic Kong Fan (箜饭 / 孔饭) technique, rice is boiled until about 60–70% cooked, then lifted into a shāojī so the rice water can be reserved (often drunk with the meal) while the grains drain. The half-cooked rice is later spread over a savory base and finished under a cover in the same wok. Soft folk talk sometimes links the bamboo radical of the character 箜 to this bamboo colander; that association is folk etymology, not a philological proof. See Kong Fan — Naming.