Cornstarch is your crispy critter friend

[AlaMoi]

sometime back I encountered a recipe for Mongolian stir-fry.  the usual vegetable items/step - but the beef strips were treated with cornstarch vs/. nothing vs flour . . .

 

"Treated" meaning .... beef strips plunked into a bowl and tossed in corn starch to thoroughly coat - 2-3 hours of bowl time - with repeated tossings to ensure the beef strips were generously and completely coated.

pan fried, the results were stunningly delicious crispy strips of beef.....

 

more recently "chicken stir fry" hit the menu plan . . .  and I opted to try the cornstarch trick on chicken strips.

and it worked, most splendidly - pix'd are chunks of chicken breast plunked in corn starch and tossed/retossed for 2 hours.

pan fried in oil - I took this pix on paper towels as they drained to show . . . yeah, not deep fried but 'does well with a draining'

 

given the chunk size, takes only 4-5 minutes per 'batch' - the results are tender chicken with a crispy coating.

if you've not tried the "extended" dredge in cornstarch for beef/poultry/_and fish_ - I can highly recommend giving it a go....

 

[heidih]

Not protein, but cornstarch as the coating for vegetable fries like zucchini and its flowers works for me. I think many cultures use various starches other than wheat flour as coatings for crispy and other things. Like potato and tapioca. Happy discovery - right?

[liuzhou]

I'd be very surpised if Mongolia uses c⊘rn starch. Too far north. I certainly don't recall it there.

 

But any culinary starch should do the same. Most Sichuan stir-fried dishes, for example, use potato starch as do dishes elsewhere here in China. Wheat flour is rarely, if ever, used for coating meats.

 

 

 

[Duvel]

Karaage, tatsuta age, Korean fried chicken … all marinated & starch coated from quickly dredged to hours. 

[AlaMoi]

"I'd be very surpised if Mongolia uses c⊘rn starch. . . ."

 

indeed - a New World crop not likely to have been used . . . but perhaps something similar . . . with the recipe author/developer substituting 'something more available' in western markets...?  it's not like one can trust any ole' thing you find on the internet . . . .

 

to paraphrase the Bard .... "the result is the thing"

I have potato "flour" - wonder if that's the same as potato "starch?" 

I see some speri-minting in the future  . . .

 

one of the culinary 'rumors' is cornstarch 'tenderizing' [meats] - I wonder if 'most any ole starch' has the same effect, or is there a specific chemical(?) process that makes cornstarch 'more better' than others?

[liuzhou]

 

1 hour ago, AlaMoi said:

one of the culinary 'rumors' is cornstarch 'tenderizing' [meats] - I wonder if 'most any ole starch' has the same effect, or is there a specific chemical(?) process that makes cornstarch 'more better' than others?

 

Starch is starch. No matter the source, they all do the same job.

 

What makes one "more better" is more local availability. China certainly uses c⊘rn starch (it is the most commonly used starch here), but mainly in the south and east of the country. Nothing to do with being a new world crop - China is the second largest producing nation after the USA. It's more a climate issue.

 

1 hour ago, AlaMoi said:

I have potato "flour" - wonder if that's the same as potato "starch?"

 

I forget where you are located. I suspect however, it may be a linguistic question. For example, 'c⊘rn starch' is 'c⊘rnflour' in the UK.

 

Edited July 5, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[Tropicalsenior]

2 hours ago, AlaMoi said:

I have potato "flour" - wonder if that's the same as potato "starch?

According to Mr Google,

Tog

Potato starch vs potato flour: what's the difference?

Potato starch and potato flour are not interchangeable as they are distinct products with unique properties. The fine, white powder of potato starch is obtained solely from potatoes, whereas potato flour includes the entire potato, including the skin. Potato starch is highly effective as a natural thickener, while potato flour can be used as an alternative to wheat flour in baking.

 

The entire article is here

 

From everything that I read, cornstarch and potato starch are interchangeable when used as a breading. Not so much when used as a thickener.

 

With that in mind,

2 hours ago, Duvel said:

Karaage, tatsuta age,

I looked up some recipes for these and one of the recipes stated definitely that you could not use cornstarch. Doesn't that let out a whole lot of the recipe seekers that don't have access to potato starch? I couldn't find it here if my life depended on it.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Tropicalsenior (log)

[liuzhou]

4 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

From everything that I read, cornstarch and potato starch are interchangeable when used as a breading. Not so much when used as a thickener.

 

I find that bizarre. In my exerience potato starch is an exellent sauce thickener. In fact, that's how it is mostly used here. Chinese cooks don't use starch or anything else as breading often at all. Certainly, not as much as people in the west seem to think. Breaded pork or chicken in day-glo sweet and sour sauce ain't Chinese!

 

 

[Tropicalsenior]

5 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

potato starch is an exellent sauce thickener.

It says that they can be used interchangeably as thickeners although potato starch will give a more transparent sauce then cornstarch and potato starch is better used with high heat and cornstarch with low heat. According to that, potatoes starch would be much better in Chinese food.

I guess that I just didn't state it very well. I just don't see why there would be a difference using them also in a breading or in the velveting procedure.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Tropicalsenior (log)

[liuzhou]

cooking

Anything Cornstarch Can Do, Potato Starch Can Do Better - Bon Appetit

 

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/what-is-potato-starch

 

 

[liuzhou]

On 7/6/2023 at 7:33 AM, Tropicalsenior said:

I just don't see why there would be a difference using them also in a breading or in the velveting procedure.

 

Neither do I. As I said, corn starch is the most commonly available in China. Sichuan does prefer potato. Here in Guangxi both are used.

 

That Bon Appetit article claims that potato starch noodles are used in what they call 'Loh shi fun", by which I think they mean 螺蛳粉 (luó sī fěn), Liuzhou's famous export. If so, it's nonsense. Potato noodles are a thing, but luosifen never uses them. It uses rice noodles.

 

 

Edited August 7, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[Tropicalsenior]

15 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

cooking

Anything Cornstarch Can Do, Potato Starch Can Do Better - Bon Appetit

 

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/what-is-potato-starch

 

 

Thank you. Much better Source than mine.

3 hours ago, Duvel said:

tatsuta age,

I can go ahead and make this and forget about what they say about using potato starch only.

[FeChef]

I prefer sweet potato starch ( Thick ).