Cornmeal

[Anybody]

What is the difference between cornmeal, corn flour and corn starch ?

[not a chef]

I think corn flour here and corn starch are the same thing:  it has a smooth and light texture and is white in color.  when you mix it with water then heat it, it becomes translucent.  It is often used to thicken sauces.

Corn meal is ground up dry corn, and is yellowish in color, and much heavier and coarser in texture than corn starch (or corn flour).  It is used to make corn bread, muffins, corn tortillas, etc.   The only version I have seen here comes in a yellow box and is imported from the US.

Suggest you google it to get more details. 

[Mrs Sparkles]

"Not a chef" is correct. Corn flour in the UK (Singapore follows this) is what Americans call corn starch, while in the US corn flour is finely ground corn meal.

There's plenty of corn meal here. The "Bob's Red Mill" range offers different grades and there are others - such as Albers grits from the US. Europe gives us Polenta, which is also cornmeal.

[scoobydoo]

I bought Albers Cornmeal at either Cold Storage or Fairprice and its a good brand. I used to buy it in the US.  The cornbread recipe on the box is a really good one. You can also get white cornmeal ) but I don't know if you get it here.  Grits are southern US thing.  They are tasty but don't keep long uncooked.  The ones I know of go rancid quickly.  Where can you get grits here?

[Mrs Sparkles]

I bought the grits in CS. Keeping them in the freezer in a plastic box (eg. lock n lock) or in a baggie will help avoid rancidity developing.

[difference]

What is the difference between cornmeal, corn flour and corn starch ?

Cornmeal is dried corn that is dumped whole into a mill and ground up. If you had a bunch of dry corn kernels you can toss them into a coffee grinder and make all you want.

Corn flour is similar, although it is generally ground, and milled and sifted until it gets to be flour instead of meal. It is much more of a fine powder.

Corn starch is more of an interesting thing. If you take a corn kernel it is made up of different parts... if you google 'diagram of a corn kernel' you will see that one of the components of the inside of the individual kernel is called 'endosperm'...

They have a method to removed the endosperm  from the rest of the kernel...it is typically done by washing and cooking...that part of the inside of the kernel (the white part) dissolves easier.

Just like if you have ever boiled a pot a pot of spahetti noodles... the stuff that made the water milky is starch...if you don't rinse the noodles afer you are done they will stick all together into a big clump because of the stickiness of the wet starch that binds together.

[Thankful]

Many thanks to everyone for taking the time to reply. Appreciate it.

[vivi]

Thank you guys!! I had a hard time looking for cornmeal till I came across this webpage.

Yes, cornmeal can be bought from Cold storage !!

[Anonymouse]

Great! Been searching around on where to get grits here.

Thanks a lot, guys! (:

[Miche]

Hi, under which section in Fairprice can you find cornmeal?