Have you ever had that problem? Probably the soup feels weird, the poached fish tasted funny, or probably your iced water drink tastes as if it is been left there for years? Yes, it could be. And for a bartender to ‘portray’ to his consumers that he takes water from the tap is simply ridiculous. It could be so tormenting to the customer that he/she could reject the drink right away. Malaysian water may not be as famous for dirt as to India’s water, but it’s still bad enough to get you a stomach ache for unfiltered water.

Restaurants should always have this rule: The water from your tap should be as clean as you can drink it right away. And it needs to be filtered. And the filter catridge needs to change every now and then. Commercial kitchens fail to see little things like this, and this could have adverse effect on the quality of your food, and the health of your customers.

Should I still use tap water?

For ease and convenience, yes. Always keep in mind that most kitchens out there use tap water for cooking -And they do it all the time. But always remember that most of them out there have a water filter installed. My concern here is:

1. Is the water filter catridge maintained and changed often?
2. Do kitchen staffs misuse tap water?
3. Does your HACCP plan include water cleanliness to this level?
4. Is your tap head maintained well and changed at least once in 6 months?
5. Are you using a medium (rubber pipes) to transfer from tap head to your pot? If yes, how clean is that?
6. Do you separate dishwashing area from your preparation area, or area they nearby each other?
7. Is your soap food-friendly?
8. Does your water filter filters out chlorine to a level where it cannot be detected by tongue before and after cooking?

You must be crazy, suggesting mineral water for commercial kitchens

Not really. Commercial kitchens range from sizes, menu, utilities and food business profile. It’s particularly expensive to get mineral water for all your cooking, but in certain kitchens, mineral water is used for poaching, soups, steaming, beverages, dairy products mix and sauces.

Some argue that heating up the water element would probably do enough good to destroy all the minerals – And mineral water should only be used for drinking.

Food Central Recommends:

Well, Food Central would argue and say, “For Garde Manger, it’s more than important. Nobody wants their Teppan Sauce tasting like chlorine or filtered water. Cold marinades, uncooked cold soups and acid-based cooking count too. If you cannot finish using your mineral water for all your cold sauces or soups, then give them to the bartender. After a few weeks, you should be able to gauge how much mineral water you need to order for your kitchen operations.”

Yes – Burnt foods can hurt and smell bad. Especially when it’s rotting in your pot, waiting for it to be transferred elsewhere. Today, one of our apprentices burnt her pièce de résistance – Soupe de Legumes. With the heavy-bottomed pan producing small holes of the burnt soup on its surface, it produces some kind of stench where it could kill – And you don’t want that to happen in your restaurant if it’s an open restaurant. There are too many mistakes in Teppanyaki restaurants in Malaysia lately – And we do not feel like becoming one.

Heating up food is one way of cooking – But not to the extent of burning it. Foods like garlic burn quickly, and we don’t want that. Angelia Giam blogged about Fried Shallots in Shallots Oil and I (V. Cook) helped her with some strategies to combat burning of foods, and also how to keep it crispy all year round.

Here are some ways to combat heat if you’re in need of a quick fix:

1. Very hot oil

   Remove pan from fire, add in more oil. Double the amount of oil if you cook frequently – That will keep your oil from a rancid feel after a month or so.

2. Very hot pasta

   The quick fix is ice cubes. But hot pasta into ice cold water is too sudden. Always keep pasta half cooked, with water drained, wash it in lukewarm water. Quick fix: Ice or cold sauce.

3. Cloudy soup when boiling chicken.

   Quick fix: Get some boiled water, blanch the chicken for approximately 10-20 seconds. Cool it off, then boil. Works very well on stocks – Do this especially for bones.

4. Remove pomegranate bits

   Portion the pomegranate into 6 sections – But don’t cut them until the bottom. Cut them until they are about to release, then soak them in water. All the seeds will be removed. You can strain it off now.

5. Peeling potato and tomato

   Using a sharp knife, make a thin, reasonable slit to the potato or tomato skin (the thickness shouldn’t be more than 4mm for regular ones). Do it to all of your potatoes and tomatoes. Blanch them in hot water for 5 seconds, then place it in ice water. Immediately, the skin will come off.

6. Keeping chicken stock out of the fridge

   If you have no space to keep your chicken stock (in the fridge), then boil your chicken stock in high fire for approximately 10 seconds after it has reached its boiling peak, turn off the fire and cover the pot – 7/8 closed.

7. Remove insects from your dry, uncooked rice.
   Place a few pieces of dried chillies inside. Within hours, live ones will be gone, new ones would not breed.

8. If you need to reheat liquid in a microwave oven, have something in it.

   For a cup of coffee or any other liquid materials, always have something wooden placed into it – This will prevent any explosion should there be overheating.

9. Toast your herbs (dry) or blanch them (fresh) before using.

   They will produce a more robust aroma.

10. Pound your chilly, not grind them.

    Pounding your chilly in a pestle with a mortar gives you a more refined taste, bigger texture and juicier finish.

Ever wondered how would it be to make your own ‘meat produce’ at home, killing it to cook for your family to consume? It’s not so easy, really. What about proper prawn farming (home scale), fish raring, water-frog farming or chicken breeding? Invading the chicken coop for your lunch could be double the fun – If you have the time. But for most housewives, students or singles, they often just live on instants, one way or the another: Either it’s an ingredient, a food alternative or a pre-prepared dish.

What you can do to keep things fresh at home, is actually some determination. We’re not saying it does not require special love or some hardwork, but we’d say it requires some determination.

Living fresh food / Leaving the Food Fresh

Piling up tons and tons of food in the refridgerator is not a good idea, especially if you’re single and lazy. At the end of the day, you’ll only end up with rotten foods, ALMOST spoiled foods or cross-contaminated foods. Here are a few tricks of the trade:

1. Keep your food stocks low – Terribly low.

   When you’re not cooking enough, you’re letting your food rot more. Rotting doesn’t help with digestion, or health. There’s no study to say that rotten eggs are good for your brain functionality, mind you. Keep your food stocks low, get all the necessities (seasoning, instant foods, canned products) and stop stocking on beef meat you know you’re too lazy to sear and make a sauce out of it.

2. Do online grocery shopping.

   Online grocery shopping helps a lot. Ordering what you only need, getting it delivered fresh, top customer service (shouting at the man if your food is rotten and demand a bigger reimbursement for the act of sedition), no traveling, no baggage, no carrying, etc. Sometimes, you get coupons if you’re a regular. Pick a good online grocery store and STICK TO THEM.

3. Get some friends to stock some pile in your fridge.

   What could be better than going dutch in for a cheap meal with big food volume? Better yet, you can gossip about David Beckham’s scandals or watch the game together. Have some friends over at your place, split the grocery bills, cook up some foods and share them – For bulk discounts, you’ll catch better price. Warning: Be a regular customer to the supplier or you won’t get the bulk discount.

4. Organize ‘wholesale’ eating.

   Clear up your fridge by dumping all the foods into a dinner meal with your friends. If you know you need to restock fresher ingredients or sweep away remaining foods in your cabinet, invite your friends over for a free meal. Free meals are always welcome.

5. Stick to your guns.

   Don’t try Polish cuisine if you’re doing Indonesian. Forget about Indian cuisine if you’re doing Greek cuisine. Stick to one cuisine – Your seasoning box will be filled with spices you’ll only need. And if you can, stock up YOUR basic spices. You’ll spend less on grocery and be more organized.

6. Buy more dried foods.

   A lot of dried foods keep indefinitely. Nuts are great for snacks, pasta, salads and sometimes soups. Canned tomatoes can keep for months (and it’s good in most seasons), corned beef can be kept longer, etc. Dried foods help you with your cooking for the week, or the month. It makes things simpler for household cooking.

7. High fiber snacks should equals energy drinks volume.

   Not a health message, but logic. Foods that are high in fiber keeps you from eating too much, and energy drinks keep you hydrated (avoid hungry thoughts and divert attention) and keep you struggling to do other activities instead of eating.

8. Make the ultimate soup bowl.

   Whoa! 10 different ingredients left in the fridge and the end of their lifespan is tomorrow? No worries. Cook up basic chicken/pork stock, get some Szechuan vegetables, cold water, vegetables soaked in brine, chilly and pour in all your 10 ingredients into a pot. Boil, add seasoning and voilà!

The more people we serve, the better our knowledge is, the fresher our stocks are, the higher the turnover rate, the longer the accounts go, the more invoices and receipts our restaurant have. But if we come to the understanding of a particular something which we’re so good of, there could be no problem in handling almost anything. Creativity strikes, the garnishing looks different, and bah, there you go.

But what if, you have no idea?
In the first place, the menu item would not be there.

Wait, what about the replacement Chef who knows nothing about the new menu implemented?
There is always the Standardized Recipe.

So what the hell would be the problem?
Ignorance.

Probably one of the most common problems we face in the kitchen industry here in Malaysia is ignorance. I wouldn’t doubt other places would, too, like the beautiful France and famous Australia, but in Malaysia, ignorance about quality is the key concern – Especially when there is no strong leadership in the kitchen.

Let’s take the topic as an example:

“Mom, why are the scrambled eggs moist?”

There two levels to scrambled eggs:

1. Moist
2. Dry

Some would prefer moist, and some would prefer dry. Take aside the intensity of moist and dry at the moment. The three ways of preparing scrambled eggs are:

1. Microwave oven with constant stirring.
2. Small fire over a skillet.
3. Steaming it high, mashing it hard.

Nevertheless, a restaurant is supposed to serve foods to tantalize people’s tastebuds, not so focused on spreading the culture as this will be way off in the business sense. We wouldn’t want to shoo them off because we stand still in our stronghold – For example: “I come here to spread the ITALIAN way of EATING, COOKING, and you MALAYSIANS are to FOLLOW or; piss off.”

Leadership, kitchen culture, restaurant culture, and training is very important. Let them be your benchmark.

Food Central encourages its students to cook for the family – More of like preparing a whole set of home menu that they’ve planned, maintain control over, brainstormed, understand its viability, performed costing, set up taste-control & create an ambient out of it. Basically, it’s more of painting a thousand words for their guests without beautiful set-ups; but rather just from the preparation to the serving, all the way up to cleaning the dishes. It should be in a flow where each and every process would be their duty to maintain control over.

As Food Central digs out friends and families who are always willing to be their lab rats, there have been good and bad experiences ranging from thrusting tongue to plate-licking. Rowdy it may sound, but these experiences create not only necessary confidence to the Apprentice Chef, but also a stress to achieve better in the production of food.

A report is not required, but rather a video, which will be documented in their profile later.

Minimum of 4 guests and maximum of 8, who are all strangers to the Chef.

Drawing a line towards the complexity of the menu is what Food Central is more focused on – Rather than just a free-for-all menu which they could blow up (they have pretty imaginative minds), we’ve set a standard and guideline to their planning:

• Number of pax not exceeding eight (8)
• Number of menu combination not exceeding 6 (A la carte)
• Cost per head should not exceed $40 (Restaurant and Kitchen provided)
• Foods from Hors d’oeuvres to Sanitizer (after Main course) should complement each other
• Preparation time – 1 day before mise en place
• Concept & Theme to be documented before mise en place
• Briefing before food preparation
• Final preparation + dishing out total time should not exceed 90 minutes

Based on these criteria, they are also required to:

• Do pairings of food – Wine to dish, tea to dish, cheese to dish.
• Do menu complements – Science of taste (bread to clean palate, mint to soothe the throat, sorbet to help with digestion, etc)
• Handle special requests (during invitation, before the real day)
• Brief the guest on how to properly consume what he/she is about to serve.
• Work with only one kitchen helper (during operations), and one service staff.
• Cooperate with cameraman in each step to have his processes documented and evaluated later.
• Entertain the guests after the service and receive evaluation (they will get a piece of paper)

In the evaluation paper, guests will be provided with subjective answers regarding:

1. The influence of food served to the five senses.
2. The flow of food complements.
3. Intensity and power of the menu.
4. Misc comments
5. Rating

A recap on our previous post where we mentioned Kitchen Terms or English, Food Central’s Von Cook has explained various kitchen terms that are misused, particularly Cooking Methods vs Food Preparation Techniques, and we promised you another three terms, which are wet, moist and dry. I’ve jotted down Chef Sun’s explanation on these terms. He hasn’t much to say, but at least he made his point when he pointed out Dry Cooking, Moist Cooking and Wet Cooking.

Chef Sun speaks to you now about his definition of Wet, Moist and Dry.

Prologue to Kitchen Terms

We can see it has been used around verbally around restaurants, in the house, out in the public, during a summertime outing, even by our own service staff, which could be pretty embarrassing. Inappropriate use of these could result in bad reputation, although we don’t see much of these here in Malaysia. When we’re literally by-the-book or by-the-English-language, it’s a different story. Being by-the-English-language here would lead you to more shame than by-the-book because generally, the majority of Malaysians do not bother much.

However, we wouldn’t also settle much to refute these terms, but rather give a short briefing to remind service staff not to use these. Creating a culture, as what Elios said in his post in Head Chef’s Duty – Internal Marketing, is essential when it comes to erecting such knowledge and basic understanding of terms used in the kitchen, and also out of the kitchen.

Defining the term ‘WET’

Wet literally means soaked in liquid as many English dictionary would term it, and the similarity to kitchen language is 99%. Almost no difference. You wouldn’t call Cod Fish on top of a pool of Oyster Sauce ‘Wet Cod Fish in Oyster Sauce’. But rather, we’d leave the word ‘wet’ out. Another confusion that often occur is the use of ‘Wet Cooking’. No, it isn’t ‘Wet cooking’.

Defining the term ‘MOIST’

But rather, the proper way to pronounce it is ‘moist cooking’, if we’re going to mean cooking methods like steam baking. Also, when we’re talking about moist, it literally has the same meaning as English – Slightly wet or damp. We don’t see anyone saying ‘Wet Chocolate Cake’ but rather ‘Moist Chocolate Cake’. It wouldn’t be right to term ‘Moist Pasta’ or ‘Moist cut of sirloin’ but rather ‘Moist meat with good marbling’.

Defining the term ‘DRY’

Dry literally means having no liquid or not wet. From simple terms we can understand that dry can be used in a number of ways, such as Dry Cooking for baking and grilling while Dry foods could mean peanuts in vacuum packs, or sago seeds. ‘Dry’ pasta wouldn’t be the keyword here IF it’s already cooked, but it can be used for uncooked, packed instant pasta.

There are many things even great Restaurateurs could forget – A simple touch of service and the balance of good service to a great one. What probably differs good from great is the ‘term’ itself, as feedback would probably be the most important  thing in determining whether or not the service staff is really doing their work. On the other side of the viewpoint, it could also mean ‘The Designers‘ and also ‘Manager’ of the restaurant. Let’s take a look at what Food Central is discussing today.

Seating

In restaurants where there are only 1 particular set of seating, this would not be much of a problem – As they speak for themselves. But main restaurant players have been ignorant of this for a very long time. Not only comfort for the eyes from the polished environment, beauty to the feel from the excellent garnish, tangy to the tongue from the robusty-flavored Fillet Mignon, or tasteful to the class of the butlers with smooth gestures and fantastic outfit.

Seating is one of the major problems many customers today face – When they’re not comfortable with that particular chair and table, they probably won’t be there for long. Definitely no second time if there is another more comfortable seating.

In clubs and bistros where the kitchen is open all the way till midnight, comfort is crucial. Let’s not argue about the fact that we need high seating turnovers for that particular day – Customers would chow and leave, allowing another set of consumers to seat and order their food. We’re not talking about quick rotation of cafés and fast food outlets here, but rather restaurants that need to pamper their customers.

Although there is a science to tables and chairs being measured and built in a particular standard of height to adapt the general public’s height, there has been concerns about the comfort and pattern of seating that are too extreme in terms of positioning, height, backbone support, leg rest and material.

Factors affecting seating

Many of us could understand that seating is crucial – Whether or not we’re going to be sitting there for 30 minutes or an hour. When you’re planning a restaurant design, designing your interiors or simply making a purchase for your home makeover, consider these factors:

1. Color

   Many of us do not realize that color can make a huge difference. Looking at places like McDonalds and KFC, there’s a reason to why their chairs are designed to such – Small, fairly uncomfortable with not much of a padding, plain design and has fairly brighter colors. Colors affect people’s thinking indirectly, and has been proven to be stimulators of the mind – That’s why many drool over good food. Similar to seating, a bright red color could have a direct opposite effect from the pale beige one.

2. Cushion

   Cushion seating could be your prime choice if you’re looking to satisfy your guests a little more. Although there will be extra comfort, but they should not be used in any occasion. It’s best to avoid using comfortable cushion seats in a family restaurant, or using a very cheap cushion seat in a semi fine dining restaurant.

3. Ratio of Height (Table to Chair)

   Sofas would probably be your worst enemy. When we’re talking about combination of furniture, we have to see what would probably suit activities done in the room best, and match these with the room. Not only skewered to beauty, but also to deep into practicality of selected furniture.

   Most chairs and tables you find out there in furniture shops or supplier stores are capable of handling their own sciences, as they’re built based on a particular standard set by a group of people who performs study, collect surveys and provides a particular standard to it. However, at some point, not all tables and chairs that look good with your theme can fit in there. You’ll have to look at your target market. Are your consumers mainly locals? Also, look at the flow of your restaurant. Will there be a section for cigar smoking, wine appreciation, private rooms, dining halls, etc?

4. Design and Pattern

   Design and pattern should be lasting enough for the room – And that doesn’t die easily, which collaborates well with the theme, offers a prestigeous moment and a trampling effect on their feelings. Lighting would be best looked into at this point, but stay on with us in seating first.

5. Leg Rests

   Decide for yourself if you need a leg rest for your seating. Cloths which are covered by seats would hinder the leg from getting a sweet spot, whereas low seating can hurt the backbone if the leg is not allowed to rest in an L-shaped motion. Having a leg rest at the bottom part of your table isn’t going to hurt much, but for space reasons, leave the leg rests to the chairs. This part will play a big role in determining furniture for quick to medium quick meal restaurants.

6. Flexibility

   Flexibility here could mean sitting in many ways where a customer wouldn’t feel too straight – That’s why some seating tilts a little to the back. Not only that, arm rests and also the ability of the chair to fully or partially support the back is crucial. Being flexible could help much in increasing the feel of your customers – Particularly when they’re fussy.

Before we start telling you the difference between using the term wet, moist and dry, you have to understand these: Food Central has been bombarded with questions that would require only a one-timer answer, unless there is another question which differs itself much to the topic that we’re going to talk about later.

Question 1

What cooking methods are available today?

Here’s your answer.

Braising, Broiling, Boiling, Charring, Frying, Barbecueing, Searing, Smoking, Steaming, Torching, Flambéing, Sautéing, Grilling, Pot Roasting, Par Boiling, Roasting, Slow cooking, Baking, Steam-baking, Deep Frying, Shallow Frying, etc.

Question Refuted:

What about creaming, stuffing and basting?

Here’s your answer.

Those are called Food Preparation Techniques, not cooking methods. While we’d argue both terms are not very accurate and direct to the point as in being general, a better term for the first question would be Application of Heat to Food: Techniques rather than Cooking Methods simply for the fact that cold-cooking also counts as cooking, such as foods soaked in vinegar or brine. It’s called Food Preservation for that vinegar or brine method, and preserving food is only one technique in cooking.

For example:

1. Creaming is the process to where ingredients are combined and blended together – Used mostly for pastry items such as Cream the Cream Cheese with Sugar or Cream the Egg Yolk. This method does not involve heat because it’s just ‘blending’ ingredients together.
2. Stuffing is the process of using combined or a single ingredient to fill a gap somewhere in food – Such as the turkey’s inside, sausage skin, pork intestine, or, even the Fish’s inside (where you can see Chilly paste is stuffed into fish). Again, this does not involve heat and is a food preparation technique.
3. Basting is the process of pouring over a particular sauce over the food that is not soaked in its own or external juices. Sometimes done during braising, basting is a good way to get its juices or marinade or sauce over the meat so that it could seep into the meat while it’s being cooked. Basting is also done during grilling.

Keep in mind that application of certain kitchen terms are important

itchens can be very dirty places if the management wants it to be, or leaves it piling up trash. Kitchen hygiene should be emphasized a lot – Not only kitchens that provide food for airplane trips (with HACCP checkpoints) but also the standard kitchen in restaurants we visit all the time. It’s daunting to see many restaurants here in Malaysia do not keep up to the standard of hygiene in the kitchen.

Today, Food Central is going to talk about kitchen hygiene, focusing on drains. Somewhat during our dear Chef – Mr. Sun’s time in a Chinese kitchen before, he pointed out that there are different types of drains constructed in restaurants. Some don’t even have a proper drainage system, or open drains topped with 1 1/2 inch thick holes.

Drains are very important in a kitchen, especially when it’s a commercial, busy kitchen. For home kitchens, there may not be so much hassle as cooking activities and preparations aren’t done at large every single day.

Filters on the other hand could cover filters for the sink, filters for the ventilation equipment, filters for the drains and filters for the water system. Filters play a huge role in ensuring comfortable, safe kitchen handling and food quality – And also depending on how well it’s maintained and kept.

Kitchen Drainage Systems

A proper commercial kitchen should always be designed in a way where it wouldn’t contain any water on the floor – Lest accidents are bound to occur. Like the bathroom, the drain is a hole kept on one side of the bathroom, while its landscape is made such a way it’s lower, to enable gravity to flush excess water into the drain.

Raw and cooked food; water, sauces or soups; dirt and sand; plastic materials; sometimes even kitchen utensils, are often found on the kitchen floor, and they become dangerous once it’s on the floor. Not to say everything has to go into the drain, but it’s more of a mini sewerage system for the kitchen. Here are some common uses of the drain.

1. Draining convenience during kitchen cleaning.
2. To drain unusable liquid or dangerous liquidized materials in a large amount without cross contamination (liquid with strong acid, hot oil/greasy items or scraps of chemicals cleaned in a water solution)
3. To keep the kitchen floor off excess water.
4. Transfer liquid from in the kitchen to an appropriate place (rather than the sink).

There are many misuses of the drain, also. In certain kitchens (which are not supposed to be made kitchens), drains are not available, sometimes to the extent of not having a hole for drainage at all. At times when kitchen staff are less disciplined, trash will see its way to the drain. Or maybe sometimes, when a soup needs to be thrown away, they still contain certain solid materials.

Although there are requirements in building a kitchen but there’s no law to it stating that in a kitchen, you need this much of drain build or you will not be able to get your license. Have a drain for your kitchen, and you can see that things get very much easier. You can follow these few tips to better drains in your kitchen:

1. Below the grill frame used to cover the drain, have another layer of filtering wire where they can filter off bigger solid items. Alternatively, you can also use drain frames with smaller holes in diameter to allow only liquid to pass, not solid items. But this alternative method is bad in the long run. Rubbish will be on the floor after liquid has been drained.
2. Scrap the sides of your drain in order to not accumulate rubbish that are stuck.
3. If your kitchen floor is cleaned from time to time, you might not have a smelly drain. Should you encounter this, 1 cup of baking soda into 4 quarts of hot water will help a lot.
4. At times, the drain can grow plants, or roots. Use hot water to wash it away or acidic items like vinegar to take them off. If you’re encountering something like tree roots growing out of the drain, consult a professional drainage company immediately.

Roux has been used in the Culinary industry for a long period of time up to date. Not only it’s practical to its usage, roux is also very useful in terms adding flavor to soups or sauces. There are many stipulations to Roux as there is with politics today, as this long-time French thing is found so useful that many practice this product, use it differently and sometimes, perceive it differently.

What roux can bring to you today is its basic understanding and use. Nothing could be further from roux-truth than to practice this concept of using roux:

Warm Liquid —-> Hot Roux
Warm Roux —-> Hot Liquid

Typically, what Chefs need to understand in the kitchen is that, Roux isn’t just one type of thickening agent or emulsifier, if you want to put it that way. There are many other alternatives to roux also, such as potato starch, tapioca starch, corn flour, etc. These starches have their own strengths and weaknesses, therefore increasing the likelihood of a particular menu to ‘vary’ of a thickening agent or an emulsifier’s usage.

Other thickening agents such as corn, potato, arrowroot, tapioca, and wheat are particularly special themselves, and the below explains their properties.

Thickening Agents’ Properties

There are many sorts of thickening agents out there in the market – Food Central uses only a few by far, due to costing and practicality factors. For certain kitchens, it’s advisable to use certain things, and also, depending on its properties, thickening agents can work well under certain conditions and vice versa.

1. Stability
   How stable is that particular thickening agent when it’s mixed into the liquid – Whether the liquid will be thick when it’s hot, or will be thin when it’s cold, or vice versa. Temperature is the core of your thickening agent’s stability. Also, it also covers thick, long cooking process. Will long cooking thin out (separation of molecules) your thick liquid?
2. Consistency
   Consistency as in when starch is incorporated into the liquid, what would probably be the texture of the soup? Use a spoon, scoop up some liquid and pour it back in – Does it have a smooth flow, or does it come close to a stringy-like texture or is it forming lump-like texture of sorts?
3. Flour-flavor
   Will the thickening agent I use contaminate the soup or sauce that I’m using with its uncooked flour smell, or will my strong flavored soup cover the uncooked flour-smell? Take into consideration volume and thickening agent strength when you’re deciding which thickening agent to use.
4. Holding Strength
   How much of the mixture of flour and water do I need to incorporate into my liquid before it thickens out to the consistency that I’m looking for? Do I need two tablespoons of corn starch for this amount of liquid to get there or two tablespoons of potato starch?
5. Transparency, Opacity and Color
   After the thickening has been mixed into a liquid, will it be transparent or will it yield a little sight of cloudy, opaque-like color over the liquid?

Roux

Roux is the one best thing to add when you’re cooking it for small dishes or soup. They come in powdered formats now, and you can get them if they are available in your local store.

• Medium-weak holding power. Cooking the roux too long will weaken its holding power.
• Stability – The good part about roux is that it holds (after being incorporated well) the sauce at its thickening point even after the liquid is cooled off. Certain starches like tapioca and corn does not hold very well when it’s cooled down.
• Robust flavor – Roux has a very complex flavor of its own, especially when it comes to the kind of ‘fats’ you want to add in. Choose ‘fats’ that have higher heating point. E.g. Sunflower Seed oil or Peanut. Butter is commonly used, but animal fats are also fine, if you want a more robust flavor.
• Color – Varies. If you’re looking for the traditional dark roux, cook the flour a little longer before incorporating your fats. If you’re looking for a white roux which needs little color influence, don’t burn your flour.
• Consistency – Like the potato starch, it should be running in a very streamlined position and springing back up a little.

Potato Starch

Potato starch is known to be one of the most expensive among other flours here in Malaysia. It has:

• Great strength and holding power – Use only a bit to yield a thick sauce.
• Stability: Quite weak. When you’re heating up a sauce that requires thickening, consider bringing it to a close boil, add this and turn off the fire as soon as possible. Overheating will cause the molecules in potato starch to break and this will result in a thin liquid.
• Semi-light flavor – Not very powering to the tongue when you thicken your liquid. Since its strength is good, you do not need to add too much, this will leave the liquid clear of its flour-like favor.
• Potato starch has no color influence when it’s added to your liquid. Don’t ask for trouble by cross-contaminating it.
• Consistency – Silky and stringy. When you scoop some up and pour it back down, it should be in a very steady stream, with little silky strings dropping off like a calm waterfall, then when it goes back up, the stream will slightly bounce back up to the spoon.

Corn Starch