Cooking Aspects of Characteristics and Utilization of Starches

Abstract

Starch is a main component of cereal and vegetable foods . In addition, it is added to many kinds of foods to improve the texture and taste as an ingredient . Starch changes its physicochemical properties by gelatinization, when it is cooked. Consequently, the behaviors of pasting and the paste properties of starches, such as gelatinization temperature, and transparency, viscosity, and retrogradation tendency of the paste, etc. give important effects on cooking and the processing of foods. In this article, the properties of various kinds of starches and their relations with the functions and roles on cooking were discussed.