In our daily cooking, a variety of seasonings are essential, either simple or complex, because the addition of seasoning dishes, both color and aroma, the taste is also very different, so that people’s appetite.

When it comes to cooking seasonings, besides oil and salt, soy sauce, chicken essence and other ingredients, there is another seasoning that we often use, that is, starch and cornstarch. Many of the dishes we have shared before have mentioned the use of these two seasonings, but there are still a lot of people who say they still can’t tell what is cornstarch? What is starch? What is the difference between corn starch and sweet potato starch, and which powder should be used for thickening stir-fries and deep-frying marinated meat?

In fact, there is a lot to be said here, because if you use the wrong (wrong), it is likely that a pot of good food will be spoiled. What is the difference between starch and cornstarch?

Difference in raw materials

There are quite a few sources of raw materials used to make starch, and they are usually named according to the raw materials.
According to the national standard GB888788, starch is divided into these four categories, namely: cereal starch, potato industry, bean starch, other types of starch.

Starch is all kinds of natural starch that has not been processed by physical and chemical methods, nor does it change the inherent physical and chemical properties of starch.

Raw meal usually refers to corn starch and potato starch.

Difference in consistency

The viscosity of starch is very important, because different viscosity directly determines the use of starch, in what circumstances, if this point is not mastered, messy use, not only can not make the dish more icing on the cake, but may spoil a pot of good food.

The lowest viscosity is: cornstarch (potato starch).
Moderate viscosity: corn starch.
The stronger viscosity is: sweet potato starch.
The strongest viscosity is: mung bean starch.

Differences in Use

After learning about the viscosity of different starches, here’s how to use it.
(1) Thickening
Thickening is the most commonly used cooking method in our daily cooking, in many dishes that need to be thickened we will use starch, but the starch used here is the starch in the raw powder, also known as potato starch, adding potato starch water thickening dishes, so that the soup is round and not thick and shiny. So that we daily used to thicken the choice: potato starch.

(2) Battering, pasting, and flouring

There are also some starches that are used in normal cooking for basting, gluing, and patting, which are mostly used for frying foods and marinating meats.

Meatballs, fish marinade meat to the surface of the meat on a layer of starch paste, so that in the cooking process, the taste will be more tender.

At this time we need to choose: corn starch with a moderate viscosity. It is suitable for making crispy shells of fried things, and can be used for basting, hanging batter, and patting powder. The powder is light and thin, not sticky.

Corn starch is a thin, light, non-sticky flour, and is used in classic dishes such as sweet and sour pork, pot roast, and so on.

Sweet potato starch, on the other hand, has a strong viscosity. It is suitable for making the shell tough fried things, can be used for deep-frying, very crispy, small crispy meat, fried chicken wings and so on.

(3) cold noodles, pulling the skin

In addition to starch can be used to thicken, hang paste, batter, fried food, there is a starch is suitable for making cold noodles, cold skin, many people have eaten, but there are a lot of people just don’t know what to take the production of the Chinese New Year home during the homestead, the homemade cold skin is particularly hot, the most classic is to wash the surface precipitation, the steps a little bit cumbersome, it is in order to obtain the starch in the flour, so that you can make the texture of the cold skin. In fact, with the most viscous mung bean starch can also make cold skin. Like slipping balls and making cold noodles use it.

Starch (except for raw flour) is generally needed to be put into the ingredients in advance, such as frying crispy pork, making intestinal noodles, meatballs, sizing fish fillets, and other delicacies need to be put into the starch in advance.

The use of cornstarch thickening, you need to wait until the ingredients are fully cooked before you put, if the ingredients are not cooked on the thickening water, it is easy to lead to the ingredients are not flavorful, eating is not fragrant.