Raw flour in Chinese cuisine refers to starch, which is used as thickening and glazing in cooking. Starch is an umbrella term for a wide variety of products, including mung bean starch, corn starch, potato starch, sweet potato starch, pea starch, fava bean starch, gravy starch, and diamond starch powder. Starch is insoluble in water, and water together when heated to about 60 ℃, will be paste into a colloidal solution, and thickening is the use of starch of this property.

Raw flour is often found in recipes, mostly for thickening. Or it is used in soups to make a soupy consistency, and it is also used to marinate meats to soften them and produce a tender texture. However, raw flour is not a proper name for a particular type of flour and does not exclusively refer to a particular type of flour. Raw flour is known as dough flour in the north, and most of the raw flour often used on the mainland and in Hong Kong is cornstarch, while the one customarily used to thicken food in Taiwan is tai bai flour.

Expanded Information:

Corn starch; Corn starch, also known as cornstarch, cornflour, is a product made from the starch extracted from corn kernels, but does not perform as well as potato starch.

Taibai Powder:Taibai powder is raw potato starch, potato starch, is now the starch generally commonly used in the family, Taiwan called Taibai powder. Made from grated potatoes, scrubbed and precipitated. Characterized by sufficient viscosity, fine texture, white color, luster is better than mung bean starch, but the water absorption is poor.

Mung bean starch: mung bean starch is the best starch, but generally rarely used. It is obtained from mung bean by water soaking up and grinding, precipitation. Characterized by sufficient viscosity, small water absorption, white and shiny color.

Sweet potato starch: sweet potato starch, also known as groundnut starch, characterized by strong water absorption, but viscosity is poor, no luster, color is dark red with black. General sweet potato flour is granular, divided into coarse and fine two kinds. Due to the viscosity is difficult to control, rarely used for thickening, groundnut flour is mostly used in the production of style dim sum.

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia: Raw flour