The raw flour used in Hongkong is corn flour, and the common flour 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, in addition to thickening the food to produce a smooth taste. Raw flour, also known as bean water chestnut powder, is made from broad beans or water chestnut. Raw flour has a wide range of uses, which can be used as a seasoning for cooking, and can also be used to spread pancakes, mainly for sizing and thickening 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, including sweet potato starch, water bean powder used in Sichuan cuisine and corn starch.

1, 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 abundant starch extracted from corn kernels, but not as good as potato starch. Corn starch is the main raw material flour in Hong Kong.

2, too white powder

Instant potato starch, potato starch-the starch with the largest consumption and the most stable quality in China, 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 dishes for thickening, so that the soup looks thick and the food looks shiny. Generally speaking, raw flour (corn flour) is used in Hong Kong vegetable sauce. 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 powder

Sweet potato starch-also known as sweet potato starch and sweet potato starch-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. 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 thickening Chinese food, because the viscosity is difficult to control.

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 node of "arrowroot" is almost pure starch. If these nodes are chopped, washed, dried and ground, this is Ge Fen (also known as 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 flour

Cassava starch-also known as water chestnut powder and Thai raw powder (because Thailand is the third largest cassava producer 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 coconut starch

Sago palm starch is not common here, but if you say sago, I believe everyone will be familiar with it. Sago palm starch is a special product of Indonesia, which 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, 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. Crystal powder

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

8. Raw flour

Starchy flour-strictly speaking, it is the general name of all kinds of starches, mainly used for thickening and snacks. It is called Tuanfen in the north and Lingfen in Shanghai. It does not refer to any kind of starch. Raw flour is a term that often appears in mainland recipes and Hong Kong recipes, and it is mostly used for thickening. The raw flour used in Chinese mainland and Hongkong is corn flour, and the starch 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, in addition to thickening the food to produce a smooth taste.

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.