Corn starch is also called corn flour, corn starch, corn flour, raw flour, and some places call it bean flour (this is really rare). It is starch extracted from corn kernels-the most abundant starch, but it is not as good as potato starch. Corn starch is the main raw flour in Hong Kong.

2, too white Potato Starch

Instant potato starch, potato starch-the most used starch with the most stable quality at home, is called Taibai powder in Taiwan Province. It is characterized by sticky foot, fine texture, white color, better luster than mung bean starch, but poor water absorption. Adding water will condense into a transparent sticky state when heated. In Chinese cooking (especially Taiwanese cuisine), white powder is often mixed with cold water and added to the cooked dishes to make gouzi, which makes the soup look thick and makes the food look shiny. Generally speaking, raw flour (corn flour) is used in Hong Kong cuisine juice. However, the soup thickened with white powder will become thinner after cooling, while the soup thickened with corn starch will not change after cooling.

Too white powder can't be directly heated and mixed with water or put into hot food, it will immediately condense into pieces and can't be boiled. After the food boiled with white powder is cooled, the juice will become thinner, which is called "returning water". Therefore, corn starch is generally used to make the material sticky instead of white powder.

PS: Note that it is different from Potato Flour (also called "potato flour"), which can be reduced to mashed potatoes after being boiled with heated 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 and sweet potato starch, it is characterized by strong water absorption, but poor viscosity, dull color and dark red with black. It is a powder made of sweet potato starch, etc. Generally, sweet potato powder is granular, including coarse and fine particles. Usually, coarse sweet potato powder is better to buy at home. Sweet potato powder, like white powder, will be sticky after being dissolved in water, but the viscosity of sweet potato powder is higher than that of white powder. Therefore, sweet potato powder is less used when thickening Chinese dishes because the viscosity is more viscous.

Sweet potato powder is widely used in making Chinese dim sum.

4. Ge Fen

Ge Fen is made from the underground stems of a perennial plant "Arrowroot", because the whole nodes of "Arrowroot" are almost pure starch. If these nodes are shredded, cleaned, 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, which is similar to that of corn starch powder and white powder. However, corn starch and white powder need to be at a higher temperature to thicken soup, while kudzu powder works at a lower temperature. Therefore, like American pudding containing eggs, because eggs are easy to agglomerate at a higher temperature, it is very suitable to use Ge Fen as thickening agent at this time. Some recipes also call it Arrowroot Flour.

5. Tapioca Flour of cassava flour

Cassava starch-also known as water chestnut powder and Thai raw flour (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 imported more and more from Southeast Asia, so people in Taiwan Province used to call potato starch too white, and now they generally call cassava starch too white. It will be transparent after being cooked with water and heated, and the taste of QQ is elastic.

6. sago palm starch

This is not common here, but if I talk about sago, I believe everyone will be familiar with it. Sago, or West Gu Mi, is an Indonesian specialty, and it is made of tapioca flour, wheat starch and corn flour. Sago has the function of restoring natural moisture to the 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 is about to bloom, people cut down the trunk, remove the branches and leaves, cut it into sections horizontally, each section is about 1 m, and then split it in two. The starch in the stem is scraped out with a knife and immersed in a 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-like particles, which local residents call it. This is the sago in the coconut milk sago we usually eat.

7. Crystal powder Clear Roll Cake Flour

The main ingredients are corn flour, water chestnut powder and other starches.

8. Starchy Flour

Raw flour-strictly speaking, it is the general term for all kinds of starch, mainly used for thickening and snacks. In the north, it is called Tuanfen, and in Shanghai, it is called Lingfen raw flour, which does not specifically refer to any kind of starch. Raw flour is a term that often appears in mainland recipes and Hong Kong-style recipes, and is mostly used to tick. The raw flour used in mainland China and Hongkong is corn flour, while the common flour used in Taiwan Province is too white. In Chinese cooking, raw flour is often used as one of the cured meat materials to soften the meat quality, in addition to making food taste smooth.

9, mung bean starch-the best thickening starch, but rarely used, the output is not much. It is characterized by sticky foot, small water absorption, white and shiny color.