Kansui and the effect of basic solutions on wheat flour
This is a food question. How do basic solutions affect wheat flour? Now the context.
"Kansui" is an ingredient in various recipes for Chinese noodles and Japanese ramen. It's an alkali solution. The word itself is Japanese and
translates as "water from (lake) Kan", which is evidently an alkali lake (or hot spring) in China (according to the Wikipedia page on ramen, in Inner
Mongolia). Kansui is an ingredient in commerce and sold both as solution and in powder form (just the salts). One formula I've seen for kansui is "55%
sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), 35% potassium carbonate (K2CO3), and 10% sodium biphosphate dodecahydrate (NaHPO3.12H2O)". There's also a Chinese retail
product "potassium carbonate & sodium bi-carbonate solution" for the same purpose.
One effect of these solutions is to turn the noodles yellow. (Now you know.) There are also texture changes. My question is very primitive: What's
going on here? Evidently the sodium/potassium ratio has some effect (see reference below). And what about the phosphate? I'm really pretty ignorant
about what might be going on here. References follow.
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