# Corn flour in Chinese cooking



## marcoleavitt (Mar 24, 2013)

So I have been using actual corn flour (not masa, corn meal or corn starch) as a coating for chicken in a number of Chinese recipes, only to find out recently that corn flour is the term used for what in the United States we call corn starch. Should I have been using corn starch all this time, or are is corn flour ever used in Chinese cooking? For what it's worth, I find that the corn flour works quite well in giving the chicken a nice seared exterior and isn't as prone to seizing up the way corn starch always wants to.


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## Iceman (Jan 4, 2011)

Do you like what you are making? Is it tasty? Do you eat it and not have to throw any away? 

Corn starch is different than corn flour. You get a much different texture. I've never had or made any Asian chx dish that cooked anywhere near as long as god old U.S. chx recipes. LOL. I'm not familiar with Asian chx dishes using big whole pieces of chx like we do. I use corn starch with a number of dishes including small quick-cooking pieces of meat. Like I said, it's a different texture. Good luck. Enjoy eating what you make, don't worry too much about authenticity.


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## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

Yeah you should have been using corn starch.

Potato starch works too. Sometimes rice flour or tapioca flour, never used corn meal for anything chinese that I can think of.


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## cheflayne (Aug 21, 2004)

Cornstarch is corn flour.

Corn flour is corn starch.

They are one and the same and are interchangeable because nothing is changed except the name.

Sometimes people confuse corn flour with corn meal. They are not the same and are not interchangeable.


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