Introduction to tangzhong (2018) | Hacker News Reader

Introduction to tangzhong (2018)

kingarthurflour.com

92 pointsluu35 comments

> This Japanese technique

No Japanese anything is called "tangzhong".

The technique is called "yudane" in Japanese: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B9%AF%E7%A8%AE

That's written 湯種, where "yu" and "tane" are the Japanese native words corresponding to these character. "Tangzhong" may a romanization of a Chinese re-reading of this spelling. (For comparison, the Sino-Japanese reading ("onyomi"), if there were one, would likely be "tanshu".)

By the way, we know this is of Japanese origin because the word "tane" has meanings like "material" and "leaven dough". It's written 種, but that 種 character only has that meaning when it denotes "tane" in Japanese.

There is a similar technique in Chinese baking called tangzhong. That is indeed the pinyin of 湯種.

I doubt there's enough evidence to determine if it was a Japanese or Chinese invention. Either name is acceptable.

> Either name is acceptable

Not when the origin is mixed up. If the article said "Chinese technique of Tangzhong" or the "Japanese technique of Yudane", then its fine. The person you're replying to is talking about the mix up of the origin. No one is talking about who came first.

I did in fact posit a hypothesis about the origin. According to one Chinese dictionary, 湯種 is in fact originally yudane, coming into Chinese as a loan-word (using a Chinese reading).

By the way, that is not unusual. In fact Chinese uses exonyms for Japanese names and places based on re-reading the kanji spelling in Chinese.

Let me pick something at random: 箱根, Hakone: a place name made from "hako" (box) and "ne" (root).

Checking in a Chinese dictionary, we have a hit:

https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&wdrst=...

It's called Xiānggēn in Chinese.

Your entire central point was addressing - "Japanese technique of Tangzhong", wasn't it?

Chinese speaking people are stubborn(from my point of view) about reading Hanzi/Kanji in their sounds, so landmarks in Chinese pronunciation aren't really loanwords. It's like someone sees "хорошо" and pronounce it "soppovo" because that has to be correct to them, but that's their thing(both ways) and it's not practical for single person to keep up with every pronunciations of Hanzi derivatives anyways so people just read the way they perceive.

Which, I think, also means a Japanese word in a Chinese dictionary is not an implication of acceptance as a loanword since that process is very deterministic.

> aren't really loanwords

Place names aren't loanwords, which is why I called them "exonyms": foreign names for places that differ from their local names. E.g. Japan is an exonym for Nihon.

Plot twist: Actually, the word "Japan" is thought to come originally from an earlier Wu dialect of Chinese pronounciation of "日本".

In modern Shanghainese, it's roughly "Zeppen".

If you consider that there's really no such thing as "Chinese pronunciation" -- Chinese is a writing system for a group of spoken languages such as Mandarin, Shanghainese, Cantonese -- then it makes sense that people are used to read the characters in the spoken language they are most familiar with. In fact Chinese speakers do this even for Japanese and Korean names that aren't originally written in Kanji/Hanja.

Japanese speakers used to do this to Chinese exonyms also, but generally don't anymore; nowadays they tend to take the characters (sometimes with the writing slightly changed) and annotate the reading (furikana) with the native pronunciation using Katakana.

I mean jeez, at that rate we shouldn't be calling it "Japanese" in the first place, because "Japan" is a chinese word, not a Japanese word.

Well, yeah, it's Nippon right?

Nihon

I honestly have no interest in this topic - just simply pointing out the logical error and diversion of the reply.

It’s interesting that Japan didn’t have a writing system and China didn’t have a name. Then Japan adopted Chinese writing system and Japan gave them a name. Weird.

Meh. We say "Chinese tofu dish" but "tofu" is the Japanese transliteration.

> The Tangzhong roux technique was developed in Asia around 2000. The technique was first mentioned by Yvonne Chen in her book, “Bread Doctor”, published in Taiwan in about 2003. Tangzhong means "soup" in Chinese.

From http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/39723/my-tangzhong-roux-faq

I have no idea whether that's true, but if it did originate in Taiwan it would make the language issue make more sense.

Which Chinese "tangzhong" word means "soup"? 湯汁 is "tāng zhī", for instance.

The first Chinese-English dictionary I found with DuckDuckGo results tends to confirm my hypothesis:

https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&wdrst=...

"(loanword from Japanese 湯種 yudane)"

Is "種" even acceptable as "(bread)dough" in Chinese? Google Translate gives me "麵團".

種 should mean "seed" in this context

Glad to see there are at least a few bread nerds on HN! Tangzhong is also sometimes refereed to as a water roux which I think makes a little more sense for Western cooks since any cook will hear water roux and be 99% of the way there in terms of knowing what's happening.

Anyway! This idea can work will all kinds of starches because the "trick" is to trap some additional water in a gelatinized ball and spread that throughout the dough. It makes for higher total water content while not making to dough loose to produce more steam, and the starches help the gluten trap it. You can even use gelatin itself! When you make potato bread/rolls at Thanksgiving you're using the same trick but with potato starch!

Very useful for making a moist and tender cake. In fact, there's the old trick of mixing a pudding mix with a cake mix [0], with similar results for lazy peole or people who think they're bad at cooking.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sjv3LRVubo

I think the point of "additional water" is key! Modernist Bread claims that tangzhong doesn't increase softness/volume. But, as I read their experiment, it sounds like they made breads with/without tangzhong but keeping the total water content constant.

That's been my experience.

I often make ciabatta with 95% hydration, of which 1/3rd comes from a water roux. Without tangzhong the dough is much sticker and harder to handle, which makes it harder to both form the loaves nicely, and to keep the large bubbles in the bread. The final product is very similar, though, but the process is easier.

The approach I take is similar to this one http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2984/jasons-quick-coccodril... with 30g of flour and 150g of water pre-cooked together before the dough (batter?) is kneaded.

It also helps a lot in sticky doughs. If you like spiced fruit buns around Easter time, check out King Arthur's milk bread recipe (https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/japanese-milk-bread-...) and spice and fruit to taste. Best hot cross buns I've eaten.

Here's video on this by Cook's Illustrated editor in chief Dan Souza. It goes a little bit into the science behind the technique and offers a microwave-based variation:

"How to Transform Flour and Water into the Fluffiest Dinner Rolls| What's Eating Dan?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2GWOHcEBcM

Thanks to another bread discussion on HN, I'm a very happy user of Peter Reinhart's Whole Wheat breads and Bread Baker's Apprentice books.

He does something similar with the overnight soaker/poolish/biga recipes, which have been highly successful in improving my whole-wheat bread. Is this similar, or a different technique worth trying?

Thanks!

Which thread was this, if you don't mind?

Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21232209

As pointed out in this post, tangzhong not only makes soft breads with a nice crumb, but it also makes them stay soft for a longer time period than you'd often find. In my opinion and from my own experience, this is the best part of this technique. In the past my loafs would not really last a week without being pretty dry, now they stay much more moist and I can have better sandwich bread with less baking

Different things. A pre-ferment (poolish, biga) is for developing some of the more complex flavors that a quick / "straight" dough won't give you.

Tangzhong is basically about packing more moisture into a dough while keeping it easy to handle. Higher hydration doughs are very sticky and take some experience to work with, but this will let you get something that is like a 75% hydration, but still handles like a 70% hydration dough. (I just made up these numbers, but you get the point).

For my part, I am fairly experienced with handling up to 80-ish% hydration, so I never bother with tangzhong, since it just adds another thing to do and creates more dishes to wash.

Sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Tangzhong doesn't just "pack more moisture into a dough while keeping it easy to handle". It changes the loaf after baking, too. From what I understand this is because the flour that is cooked in the roux has its gluten destroyed, thus you have a paste in your dough that isn't imparting structure in the same way and holds moisture in a different way, even after baking.

So tangzhong can give you a higher hydration, but it's not necessarily the same thing as your 80-ish% hydration dough.

Meh. I've tried both and don't see the difference. TFA backs up what I'm saying. If you know of a source that claims it changes the structure in ways besides what the article says I'd be interested in reading.

Is this incompatible with a substantial crust, or can you have both in one loaf of bread? (I'm asking as a very novice baker.)

I've never had crust issues with this technique, although I do use a steam injection oven which makes it easier.

It's doesn't seem to have the same effect as enriched dough in making the crust soft.

Tangzhong - A technique for softer yeast bread and rolls.

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