In general, water starch is dry starch with water, which together is called water starch. Stir-fried things are usually dry starch, or add dry starch with egg liquid. Starch used for thickening, also known as dough powder, is a polysaccharide polymer concentrated by multiple glucose molecules. Starch used for cooking mainly includes mung bean starch, potato starch, wheat starch, water chestnut starch and lotus root starch. Starch is insoluble in water. When it is heated to 60℃ with water, it will be gelatinized into a colloidal solution. Thickening is the use of this property of starch.
1, corn starch (corn starch): corn starch is also called corn flour, corn starch, corn flour, raw flour, and in some places it is called bean flour (this is really rare). It is the most easily available starch extracted from corn kernels, but it is not as good as potato starch. Corn starch is the main raw material flour in Hong Kong.
2. Potato starch: Instant potato starch is the most used and stable starch in the family. It is called potato starch in Taiwan Province province. It is characterized by sticky feet, fine texture, white color, better luster than mung bean starch, but poor water absorption. Heating with water will condense into a transparent and viscous state. In China cooking (especially Taiwanese cuisine), white powder is often mixed with cold water and added to cooked vegetables to make a hook, which makes the soup look thick and the food look shiny. Generally speaking, raw flour (corn flour) is used in Hong Kong vegetable juice. However, the soup thickened with white powder will become thinner after cooling, while the soup thickened with corn starch will not become thinner after cooling.
Too white powder can't be directly heated, mixed with water or put into hot food, it will immediately condense into blocks and can't be boiled. After the food boiled with white powder is cooled, the juice will become thinner, which is called "backwater". Therefore, corn starch is generally used instead of white powder to make the material sticky.
PS: Note that unlike potato flour (also called "potato flour"), potato flour can be reduced to mashed potatoes after being boiled in hot water. In addition, it is often used in western-style bread or cakes to increase the moist feeling of the products.
3. Sweet potato starch: also known as sweet potato starch, sweet potato starch, characterized by strong water absorption, but poor viscosity, dull color, dark red with black. It is a powder made of sweet potato starch. Sweet potato powder is generally granular, with coarse particles and fine particles. Usually, coarse sweet potato powder is better bought at home. Sweet potato powder, like white powder, will be sticky when dissolved in water, but the viscosity of sweet potato powder is higher than that of white powder. Therefore, sweet potato powder is used less when Chinese food is thickened, because the viscosity is sticky. Sweet potato powder is widely used to make Chinese dim sum.
4. Ge Fen: Ge Fen is made from the underground stem of a perennial plant "arrowroot", because the whole stem of "arrowroot" is almost pure starch. If these stems are chopped, washed, dried and ground, it is Ge Fen (also called Arrow Root, with the same name as the plant). Ge Fen can be used to thicken soup, similar to corn starch powder and white powder. But corn starch and white powder need to be at a higher temperature to thicken the soup, while Ge Fen can work at a lower temperature. Therefore, like American pudding with eggs, it is very suitable to use Ge Fen as thickener because eggs are easy to agglomerate at higher temperature. Some recipes are also called arrowroot powder.
5. Cassava powder: Cassava starch-also known as water chestnut powder and Thai raw powder (because Thailand is the third largest producer of cassava in the world, second only to Nigeria and Brazil, it is generally used as starch in Thailand). Taiwan Province Province imports more and more from Southeast Asia, so people in Taiwan Province Province used to call potato starch Taibai, but now cassava starch is generally called Taibai. It will be transparent after being cooked and heated with water, and the taste of QQ is elastic.
6. sago palm starch: This is not common here, but if you say sago, I believe everyone will be familiar with it. Sago, known as West Gu Mi, is an Indonesian specialty. It is made of cassava flour, wheat starch and corn flour. Sago has the function of restoring natural moisture of skin. On many islands in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and other countries, there is a tree called Xigu Coconut. The trunk of Xigu coconut is thick and straight and contains a lot of starch. Generally, the life span of Xigu coconut trees is 20 years, and they die after flowering. Before it blooms, people cut down the trunk, remove the branches and leaves, cut it into sections, each section is about 1 m, and then split it in two. The starch in the stem is scraped out with a knife and soaked in the bucket, and the starch slowly sinks to the bottom of the bucket (this is what I want to talk about). If the water on it is poured out and dried, it can be processed into rice grains, which the local residents call West Gu Mi. This is the sago in coconut milk sago that we usually eat.
7. Clear roll cake powder: The main ingredients are corn flour, water chestnut powder and other starches.
8. Starch flour: starch flour-strictly speaking, it is the general name of various starches, mainly used for thickening and snacks. It is called Tuanfen in the north and Lingfen in Shanghai, and it doesn't refer to any kind of starch. Raw flour is a term that often appears in mainland recipes and Hong Kong-style recipes, and it is often used to tick. The raw flour used in Chinese mainland and Hongkong is corn flour, while the flour commonly used in Taiwan Province Province is Taibai. In China cooking, raw flour is often used as one of the cured meat materials to soften the meat quality, besides making the food taste smooth. . Raw powder (white powder), also known as bean powder and water chestnut powder, is made from broad beans or water chestnut. Raw flour has a wide range of uses and can be used as a seasoning for cooking, bean jelly and pancake stalls. It is mainly used for sizing and thickening when processing meat raw materials. In Chinese food, it refers to starch, which is used for thickening and sizing when cooking. There are many kinds of raw flour, such as sweet potato starch, water bean powder used in Sichuan cuisine and corn starch, all of which are starch. The concept of thickening corn starch in general academic circles is that it has the characteristics of water absorption, cohesiveness and smoothness after being gelatinized by heat. When the dishes are close to maturity, pour the prepared powder juice into the pot to thicken the marinade and increase the adhesion of the marinade to the raw materials, thus increasing the powder and concentration of the soup and improving the color and taste of the dishes.
9, mung bean starch-the best thickening starch, but rarely used, the output is not much. It is characterized by sticky feet, small water absorption and white and shiny color. How to thicken?
The academic concept of thickening is that starch has the characteristics of water absorption, adhesion, smoothness and cleanliness after being gelatinized by heat. When the dishes are close to maturity, pour the prepared powder juice into the pot to thicken the marinade and increase the adhesion of the marinade to the raw materials, thus increasing the powder and concentration of the soup and improving the color and taste of the dishes.
Starch used for thickening, also known as dough powder, is a polysaccharide polymer concentrated by multiple glucose molecules. Starch used for cooking mainly includes mung bean starch, potato starch, wheat starch, water chestnut starch and lotus root starch. Starch is insoluble in water. When it is heated to 60℃ with water, it will be gelatinized into a colloidal solution. Thickening is the use of this property of starch.
Mung bean starch is the best starch and seldom used. It is made by grinding mung beans and precipitating with water. It is characterized by sufficient viscosity, small water absorption and white and bright color.
At present, potato starch is widely used in families. It is made of potatoes through grinding, cleaning and precipitation. It is characterized by sticky feet, fine texture, white color, better luster than mung bean starch, but poor water absorption.
Wheat starch is precipitated from wheat bran washed with gluten or wheat bran made of flour, which is characterized by white color, poor luster, inferior quality to potato flour and easy precipitation after thickening.
Sweet potato starch is characterized by strong water absorption, but poor viscosity and dark red and black color. It is made of fresh potatoes through grinding, scrubbing and precipitation.
In addition, there are corn starch, water chestnut, lotus root starch, water chestnut starch and so on.
Whether thickening is appropriate or not has a great influence on the quality of dishes, so thickening is one of the basic skills of cooking. Thickening is mostly used in cooking techniques such as frying, sliding and frying. The similarity of these cooking methods is that the dishes made in this way basically do not contain soup. However, due to the addition of some seasonings and the moisture of raw materials, the soup in the dish is increased. By thickening, the juice is sticky and attached to the surface of raw materials, thus achieving the luster, smoothness and deliciousness of dishes.
There are usually two kinds of thickeners. One is starch juice with seasoning, commonly known as "juice-to-juice", which is mostly used for dishes cooked by quick frying and stir-frying. One is simple starch juice, also called "wet starch", which is mostly used in general cooking. Pouring juice is also a kind of thickening, also known as thin thickening and glaze thickening, which is mostly used for stewing, roasting, roasting and soup dishes. According to the cooking methods and characteristics of dishes, the usage of sauce basically has the following kinds:
1. Generally used for cooking. The powder juice is the thickest, and the purpose is to spread the sauce all over the raw materials, such as fish-flavored shredded pork and fried kidney flower. After eating, there is basically no marinade at the bottom of the dish.
2. Paste is generally used for cooking dishes such as stir-frying, sliding, stewing and stewing. Powder juice is thinner than bread, which is used to turn the soup of vegetables into paste, realize the fusion of soup and vegetables, and have a smooth taste, such as sweet and sour pork ribs.
3. Dried glutinous rice paste juice is thin, generally used for large or whole dishes, which is used to increase the taste and luster of dishes. Generally, after the dish is served, the marinade in the pot is heated and thickened, and then poured on the dish, some of which are stained with colored glass, and some juice can be left on the plate after eating.
4. Milk soup is the thinnest sauce, also called thin sauce. Generally used for stews, such as spicy tofu, shrimp and crispy rice. The purpose is to thicken the soup of dishes to meet the requirements of fresh color, fragrance and taste.
To make a good hook, we need to master several key issues:
First, master the thickening time, which should generally be carried out when the dishes are nine ripe. Too early thickening will scorch the marinade, and too late thickening will easily make the dishes heated for a long time and lose their crisp and tender taste.
Second, the thickened dishes should not use too much oil, otherwise the marinade will not stick to the raw materials easily, and the purpose of adding umami flavor and beauty will not be achieved;
Third, the soup should be appropriate. Too much or too little soup will cause the sauce to be too thin or too thick, thus affecting the quality of the dishes;
Fourth, when using pure flour juice to thicken, you must first adjust the taste and color of the dish, and then pour in wet starch to thicken it, so as to ensure the delicious taste and bright color of the dish.
Starch has strong hygroscopicity and peculiar smell absorption, so it should be well preserved, moisture-proof, mildew-proof and odor-proof. General room temperature 15C, humidity below 70%.
When cooking, another requirement is to thicken the oil, that is, after cooking, pour in all kinds of seasoning oil to make it dissolve or adhere to the thick stuff. It has the functions of enhancing fragrance, refreshing, coloring and brightening dishes. When using, the two should be combined well. According to the taste and color requirements of dishes, pour in different colors of edible oil, such as chicken oil (yellow), Chili oil (red), tomato oil, sesame oil, pepper oil and so on.
Pay attention to oiling, and be sure to pour it after cooking, so that it will be bright and shiny. Don't refuel too much and too fast at a time, or it will leak oil. Because cooking methods are different, there are different ways to refuel. Generally, cooking and cooking are cooked and then poured with bright oil on the spoon. Dry cooking, the dish is to take out the spoon, pour the remaining juice in the spoon into the oil and pour it on the dish. After Ming oil is added to the sauce, it should not be stirred too fast to avoid oil analysis.