Cooking can be a favorite pastime for many. It is a chance to experiment with new recipes and new ingredients. However, if you are new to cooking, you may be a bit confused when trying to differentiate some ingredients from others. Beginners to cooking often assume that cornmeal and cornflour are one in the same, but this can be a big mistake to make when you are trying out a new recipe. It is important for you to know what cornmeal and cornflour are exactly and what makes the two different from one another. Being more informed about the two is important when you are new to the world of cooking. Here are the biggest differences between cornmeal and cornflour.
What is Cornmeal?
Cornmeal is made from corn and it can be prepared in about 3 different ways. One of the ways that ways that cornmeal can be prepared is known as cornflour or cornstarch. This is why the terms are often used interchangeably and why people often confuse the two with one another. When cornmeal is ground very fine, this is when it is cornmeal. This means that one of the biggest differences between the two is how much it is ground. Cornmeal that has been ground very fine is cornflour.
Cornflour and Cornstarch
It is also important to note that there are parts of the country that refer to cornflour as cornstarch. This is not true of everywhere, but there are some locations that use these two terms interchangeably. Corn flour is the actual flour that is made from corn, but corn starch is another component that is made from corn. This means that you always need to be careful when you are talking about cornmeal, cornflour and cornstarch. Depending on what part of the country you are in, you could be talking about different things.
Aftertaste
If you are looking for a good way to tell cornflour apart from cornmeal, it can be as simple as relying on taste. Taste is one of the biggest differences between the two because cornflour has a very distinct taste that is very noticeable. The aftertaste is very strong, which is why it is not always recommended as an ingredient that you use in some dishes. If you want a much more mild taste, it is better to use cornmeal instead of cornflour because it does not have the same noticeable aftertaste.
