Kitchen tips

[Corzhens]

I want to share what I know in the kitchen that I inherited from my husband, hahahaaa. He said that not all cooks know this - how to melt corn starch. Use cold water to melt the corn starch before mixing it in the dish you are cooking. When you use hot water, the corn starch will not melt and just turn into a ball.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Cold water kind of "tempers" the corn starch to prepare and set it up for the hot liquid that it is about to be introduced into.
Almost the same as if you were making hot pudding, except that you take about 1/3 the hot liquid and slowly put it in the bowl with the eggs to temper them, which helps you avoid "scrambling the eggs.

Flour is also mixed with cold water. In fact, both the corn starch & flour, when mixed with a little cold water, are call a slurry mixture.

 

[Morning Glory]

In UK its called cornflour. Yes, I always mix it with a small amount of cold liquid (it can be any cold liquid - I often use milk if making a white cornflour sauce). In another thread, @SatNavSaysStraightOn says she uses ordinary wheat flour in a similar way (but I've never tried it. I was always taught that this was a practice with cornflour).