On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 1159

dimensional fishnet that not only entraps
pocketsofwater,butblocksthemovementsof
thewhale-like,water-swollenstarchgranules.
Thinning: The Granules Break Once it
reaches its thickest consistency, the starchwater mixture will slowly thin out again.
There are three different things that the cook
maydothatencouragethinning:heatingfora
long period of time after thickening occurs,
heating all the way to the boil, and vigorous
stirring. All of these have the same effect:
they shatter the swollen and fragile granules
into very small fragments. While this does
meanthatevenmoreamyloseisreleasedinto
the water, it also means that there are many
fewer large bodies to get caught in the
amylosetangle.Inotherwords,theamountof
nettingincreases,themeshgrowsfiner,butat
the same time the big whales become small
minnows. This thinning effect is especially
striking in the case of very thick pastes, less


obvious in normal sauces. If the granules are
few and far between to begin with, their
disintegrationislessnoticeable.Thisthinning
is accompanied by a greater refinement of
texture, as the starch particles disappear and
onlyindetectablysmallmoleculesremain.
Someofthethinningoflong-simmered
starch-basedsaucesiscausedbythegradual
breakdownofthestarchmoleculesthemselves

intosmallerfragments.Acidityaccelerates
thisbreakdown.

Thickening a sauce with starch. Uncooked
starch granules offer little obstruction to the
flow of the surrounding liquid (left).As the
sauce heats up and the temperature reaches
thegelationrange,thegranulesabsorbwater
andswell,andthesauceconsistencybeginsto