Chefs, what is masa harina?!


Question: It is called for in a soup. Thanks!


Answers: It is called for in a soup. Thanks!
Masa harina (literally "dough flour") is flour, made from corn. The corn meal is much more corse. Most often it's made from maze and ground to a fine flour. It's the product that's used to make corn tortillas, and tamales.
The only soup I know of could be a soup that has a dumpling made with the harina flour. That kind of dumpling can be dropped in a stew type soup or a chicken, pork, beef based soup.
Masa (Spanish, from Latin massa, "mass") is a dough made by adding water to the harina (flour) of any grain. It is an ancient foodstuff, prepared and used in pre-historic times. For example, an exhibit at the Getty museum includes pottery from the Cycladic cultures (ca. 6500 BC) with decorations showing the entire bread-making process.

Masa nixtamalera is nixtamalized maize dough, made from corn boiled with lime and ground in a molino (a mill dedicated to that purpose) or on a metate (flat grinding stone). Thus, it is made from wet hominy, reduced to a dough by grinding, and not from corn flour. Masa harina is a dry flour made from the lime-processed dough.

Masa de maíz, sometimes also called masa harina, is made from finely ground corn without the benefit of lime treatment. Both are used for making tortillas, tamales, pupusas, and many other dishes from Mexico, Central America, and South America.

Masa trigo (dough from wheat flour) is used for making tortillas as well as other breads and pastries.

In Central American and Mexican cuisine, masa nixtamalera is cooked with water and milk to make a thick, gruel-like beverage called atole. When made with chocolate and sugar, it becomes atole de chocolate. Mixed with alcohol atole becomes champurrado, a drink served only to adults.

Masa nixtamalera is nutritionally superior to cornmeal dough because the limewater adds calcium to the dough and also makes the niacin in the cornmeal nutritionally available, thus helping prevent pellagra. Made from nixtamalized hominy rather than plain maize flour, it is tastier and easier to digest. [1]
Basically, it's corn meal.
It's dough made of FLOUR-NOT corn meal.




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