Starch is one of the essential treasures in cooking, thickening stir-fry vegetables and deep-frying batter all have to use it. However, all operations are solved with the same starch, the results are often not satisfactory. Why can't we use the same starch for thickening and coating? What kind of starch can be used to make the best dish?

Why should I use different starches for thickening and breading? In fact, it's just like Yao Ming and Pan Changjiang should be approached to play basketball and act in a skit respectively -- it's not impossible for Pan to play basketball and Yao to act in a skit, it's just that the abilities required don't match their talents.

Why do we need starch?

The so-called thickening is a cooking operation that involves adding well-dispersed starch in water to make the soup sticky before the dish is ready for the pot. Many dishes are cooked after facing two problems: one is the taste of substances are in the soup, can not be attached to the dish, the most typical such as tofu; but some dishes in the internal juice in the non-stop overflow, not only the loss of flavor, but also reduce the "soft" "tender" taste. "The most important thing to remember is that it's a good idea to have a good time.

The operation of thickening can greatly improve these two problems. Starch paste by heat, the whole soup becomes sticky, so that the soup attached to the dishes greatly increased, but also the "flavor" attached to the dishes. At the same time, the starch paste also forms a barrier that prevents the soup from spilling out of the dish, and better maintains its softness and tenderness.

After thickening, the dish becomes even more tender and juicy.

In addition to this thickening of the "dish", there are also some thickening of the soup - pure "soup" is too clear, after thickening to make them into a "soup". "soup", the appearance and taste will have a great change. Typical, such as West Lake beef soup and corn soup and so on. Therefore, thickening the starch requirements, the core is thickening effect is good.

The thickening makes the soup viscous.

Breading, on the other hand, is an operation for deep-fried foods. In deep-frying, water seeps out of the ingredients and oil seeps in. Because of the loss of water, the surface of the ingredients becomes dry and hard, which greatly affects the texture. When a layer of paste is wrapped around the outside, the starch becomes pasty at high temperatures, and the dissolved molecules of straight-chain starch hinge into a gelatinized layer, which forms a "crispy skin" after the loss of water. This layer of skin becomes a barrier to prevent the water inside from coming out and the oil outside from going in. In addition, the starch is caramelized at high temperatures, and the amino acids and sugars in the batter undergo a Meladic reaction, resulting in the attractive aroma of fried food.

So, the batter requires more starch, such as the formation of a crispy skin, prevent the transfer of oil and water efficiently, easy to caramelization and Melad reaction, etc..

Starch is born equal, but has different talents

Nutritionally, all starches are equal: they are made from a large number of glucose molecules attached by dehydration, and each gram of starch produces 4 kilocalories. But these glucose molecules can be connected in different ways, and the size of the granules that are assembled after the connection is different, and they can show their different talents.