"cornstarch", "rice wine"?

[mudhead]

I've been in China (Neijiang, Sichuan) for 3 weeks and am now getting around to cooking. But some of the ingredients are hard to find the names of.

What's the Chinese for "cornstarch", the stuff you use to thicken sauces? When I ask for 玉米淀粉 (yùmǐ diànfěn) the store clerks nod enthusiastically, but then they show me cornmeal or cornflour, which is not what I want.

Also looking for rice wine, again the stuff you use in cooking. Is it 料酒 (liàojiǔ)? Tried 米酒 (mǐjiǔ), but that's a non-starter.

Thanks for your help.

[imron]

玉米淀粉 (yùmǐ diànfěn)

This should be correct, for example, see here. This is what I use for thickening sauces.

Is it 料酒 (liàojiǔ)?

料酒 and 黄酒 are both good for cooking. Personally, I prefer 黄酒.

[sethhsu]

for cornstarch I think you should say 淀粉 or 生粉 or 粉芡。

rice wine is 料酒，but 黄酒 is also OK.

[liuzhou]

Sichuan people often use pea or potato starch to thicken sauces etc. Try asking for 芡粉 (qiàn fěn).

[Brokenbridge]

for a Chinese, Cornstach, Cornflour, pea stach, potato stach could all be the same thing, cuz they have the same effect as thicking sauce...Chinese makes their cooking rather by sense and feeling, western cooking has a more rigid measurement.

[encal]

just in case they still don't understand, cornstarch is also sometimes call 太白粉

hope this helps

[mudhead]

Thank you all for your help. 料酒 seems to be exactly right for rice wine, at least that's what it said on all the bottles once I found them.

As for cornstarch: according to my Chinese friends, cornstarch is simply called 淀粉 in Sichuan. Ask for 玉米淀粉 and you get sent to the cornmeal department. On the other hand, Sichuan cooking doesn't use cornstarch as a thickener, so they do have 淀粉, but only in 10-kg bags like in the link in Imron's post.

By the way, on Imron's bag it says it's made in China, but in traditional characters! This seems strange. Is the bag from Hong Kong?