Do you use cold or hot water to mix flour?

When kneading flour, you need to use cold water, because using hot water will cause the temperature of the noodles to rise, making the flour unable to solidify normally. However, some pasta requires blanching the noodles, the more common ones are steamed dumplings, steamed dumplings, and pot stickers. These require hot water to knead the noodles, but ordinary pasta still requires cold water.

There are three types of water for kneading dough: cold water, warm water, and hot water.

1: Noodles suitable for making with hot water dough:

Hot water dough is also called boiling water dough or hot noodles. The water temperature for kneading dough is generally between 60-100 degrees. Under the action of hot water, the protein in the flour coagulates and decomposes water, the gluten is destroyed, the starch absorbs a large amount of water and expands into a paste and decomposes monosaccharides and disaccharides. Therefore, the hot water dough is glutinous and weak in strength. The finished product is translucent and has a poor color, but it has a delicate taste, rich in sweetness, and is easy to mature when heated.

Hot water noodles are suitable for making buns, steamed dumplings, siu mai, pot stickers, fried cakes, etc.

2. Pasta suitable for making with warm water dough:

The dough made from flour and an appropriate amount of warm water at about 50 degrees is called warm water dough. Because the water temperature is higher than cold water, the diffusion of water molecules is accelerated, which limits the formation of gluten texture to a certain extent, while the water absorption of starch is increased. The gluten, toughness and elasticity of this dough are lower than those of cold water dough, and the color of the finished product is inferior to that of cold water dough.

The characteristics of dough kneaded with warm water are that it is soft but strong, highly plastic and easy to shape; it is not easy to lose its shape after being cooked, has a moderate taste and is white in color. This characteristic makes it particularly suitable for making various colorful steamed cakes, such as cabbage cakes, goldfish cakes, and four-happiness cakes.

Three: Pasta suitable for making with cold water dough:

Cold water dough is a dough prepared by mixing water at a temperature below 30 degrees, commonly known as cold water noodles. Because cold water or water at a lower temperature is used to knead the flour, the protein in the flour cannot undergo thermal denaturation, thus forming more and stronger gluten. Starch will not expand and gelatinize at low temperatures, so the dough formed is firm, tough, has strong tensile strength, and is stiff, also known as "dead dough."

The characteristics of cold water noodles are that the finished product is white in color, tastes refreshing and chewy, and is not easy to break. It is generally suitable for boiled and fried varieties, such as dumplings, noodles, spring roll wrappers, pearl soup, pancakes, etc.