Definition, use, and examples of the word tangzhong.
For further reading, read King Arthur Flour’s guide to converting a yeast bread recipe to tangzhong: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2018/07/23/how-to-convert-a-bread-recipe-to-tangzhong
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INTRO
I’m Jenn de la Vega and this is your culinary word of the day.
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Today’s word is tangzhong
It is spelled… T-A-N-G-Z-H-O-N-G
It was submitted by Matt N. who says, “We're all stuck at home bakin'. Maybe some folks are running into this method in recipes.”
According to King Arthur Flour, "this Asian technique cooks a small percentage of the flour and liquid be it water or milk in a yeast bread recipe very briefly before combining the resulting thick slurry with the remaining ingredients."
How does it work?
"It pre-gelatinizes the starches in the flour, meaning they can absorb more water. In fact, flour will absorb twice as much hot water or milk as it does the cool/lukewarm water or milk you'd use in yeast dough."
The resultant dough is less sticky and easier to knead;
Breads may rise higher, due to more water creating more internal steam
They also will be moister, and will stay soft and fresh longer.
You can find it in 20 Life-Changing Cooking Innovations From 20 Years Of America’s Test Kitchen TV by Madeline Cohen,
“After applying the Asian bread-baking technique called tangzhong, which adds extra moisture to the dough in the form of a flour paste, to our recipe for Sticky Buns, the final product boasted an airy, feathery crumb that remained fresher and softer than any version we’d made the conventional way. Incorporating this flour-water paste allowed more water to be added into the dough than previously possible when simply combining dry and wet ingredients, resulting in a superhydrated dough.”
In Japan, yukone or yudane is a similar method in recipes for shokupan or milk bread.
According to the Japanese Society for Food and Technology journal,
“Yukone has been established in Japan as a method for making breads that have a soft and sticky texture and a high tolerance to staling without increasing the thickness of pore walls in the crumb grain.” The difference is that boiling liquid is poured over the flour starter than cooked over heat directly.
In The Guardian, Kim-Joy writes,
“These buns are super-soft thanks to the Asian tangzhong method, also known as water roux – perfect for covering in butter and having with your soup.”
Tangzhong is not to be confused with a regular roux, where a proportion of 1:1 flour to fat is cooked to thicken sauces.
For further reading, read King Arthur Flour’s guide to converting a yeast bread recipe to tangzhong: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2018/07/23/how-to-convert-a-bread-recipe-to-tangzhong
OUTRO
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I’m Jenn de la Vega and this has been your culinary word of the day.
Special thanks are in order to Yatrik for being our first patron of the podcast. We would like to bring attention to an art sale for the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation, it will be active until July 25, 2020.
Visit yunggarlic.bigcartel.com
To learn more about the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation visit restaurantworkerscf.org
Next time on Culinary Word of the day, we're going bean picking.
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