Instant modified waxy maize starch ✦

Amidon de maïs cireux modifié

What it is

A waxy maize mutant collected in China in 1908 gave a starch that is almost pure amylopectin — no amylose, so nothing that can recrystallise and weep. American mills scaled it when the Pacific war cut off tapioca, and the pre-gelatinised grade, cooked and drum-dried before it is ever sold, is what thickens a cold fruit coulis in thirty seconds.

In the kitchen

Whisk it into the sugar or the dry ingredients before it meets liquid; dropped straight into water it seizes into lumps no blender will open. One to two percent of the liquid weight gives a nappé, three a paste.

Goes with

Cream White sugar Lemon Raspberry Strawberry Natural cocoa powder

Same species

Blue corn Corn Cornstarch Dextrose Hominy (nixtamalised corn) Masa harina

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