Grains & starch · Fl

Flour

Protein 10–12% · builds gluten

Per 100 g

364 kcal Energy

10.3 g Protein

76.3 g Carbs

1 g Fat

2.7 g Fibre

Contains gluten GLUTEN

Let’s cook with it → Invent something with it

What it is for

They build structure. Starch granules swell in hot water, burst, and weave a net that traps the liquid — most of what you call body comes from here. Wheat does one extra job on top: gluten.

Where it catches you out

Starch does nothing before 62 °C, and acid cuts the chains during a long boil. Think about your thickener after the heat and before the acid.

The knack

Sifting does not remove lumps, it aerates: the same weight takes more space. Weigh it, never scoop it.

Storage and health

How to keep it, and who it suits.

Keeping it

Airtight in a cool dry cupboard for 6-8 months; wholemeal is higher in fat, so refrigerate it and use within 3 months.

Contains gluten

Wheat flour is a direct source of gluten: the gliadin and glutenin proteins are in the wheat itself.

Allergen: GLUTEN

What it works with

Pairings, and the reason for each

"They go well together" is not an explanation. Every pairing below has a chemical or structural mechanism under it.

Water →

Hydration is not a step before the reaction, it is the reaction: dry flour contains no gluten. Glutenin and gliadin only build the viscoelastic network once water arrives.

Salt →

Sodium and chloride screen the negative charges on glutenin chains; with less repulsion they pack closer and the dough strengthens. Salt also inhibits the flour proteases that would degrade gluten.

Butter →

Fat coats the hydrated protein strands and physically interrupts gluten continuity. That is why the same flour gives bread with water and crumbly pastry with fat.

Also works with

Yeast

Egg

Milk

Olive oil

What it fights with

Vinegar

A serious dose of acid depolymerises gluten and over-slackens the dough.

Baking soda

Soda without acid raises the pH, leaves a soapy taste and yellows the wheat flavonoids.

What goes on top

Egg wash, sesame, nigella, butter brushed on hot pide, honey or molasses

Key compounds

Glutenin / gliadin: Set irreversibly at 70–80 °C, locking the crumb structure.
Amiloz / amilopektin: Gelatinise at 55–70 °C then retrograde on cooling: that is staling.

Nutritionally

Wheat protein is limiting in lysine and incomplete on its own; legumes complete it. The old rule that they must be eaten in the same meal was withdrawn in 1988 — across the day is enough.

Terms on this page

Gliadin: Wheat’s other main protein. With glutenin it forms gluten, and it is the one that causes trouble in coeliac disease.
Glutenin: One of the two main wheat proteins. With water it builds the web that gives dough its elasticity.

Where it turns up

What is made with it

11 dishes in the database use it.

Soups 4

Highland yoghurt soup

The default Turkish yoghurt soup and the textbook terbiyeli çorba. Rice simmers in water, yoghurt, flour and egg yolk are beaten separately, tempered with hot broth, returned to the pot and thickened without ever boiling. Finished with dried mint bloomed in butter.

Wedding soup

A ceremonial soup cooked in meat broth whose identity is its terbiye: strained yoghurt, egg yolk, flour and lemon juice beaten separately, tempered, and stirred in. Finished with butter and chilli.

İç Anadolu, Marmara

Toyga soup

A thicker, more archaic cousin of yayla çorbası: hulled wheat instead of rice, strained yoghurt instead of plain. A hospitality dish made in big pots at religious holidays, eaten hot or cold.

Afyonkarahisar, Amasya, Kayseri, Sivas

Tutmaç

Small cut noodles cooked with meat or lentils, with garlic yoghurt poured over at the plate rather than stirred into the pot. This is a far older and far simpler answer to the curdling problem than terbiye.

Mains 2

Mantı

Tiny dough parcels are boiled, laid over garlic yoghurt and finished with sizzled butter and chilli. Dried mint and sumac come last.

Kayseri

Small meatballs in yoghurt

Tiny bulgur-cased köfte cooked with chickpeas in a yoghurt broth. Gaziantep sources insist it is not yuvalama: yuvalama’s balls are rice flour, ufak köfte’s are bulgur.

Gaziantep

Breads & pastry 1

Bazlama

A leavened flatbread about 2 cm thick, cooked on a griddle and turned to cook both sides. Soft inside, slightly crisp outside, and known as village bread.

Anadolu

Desserts 3

Yoghurt cake

Turkey’s everyday tea cake. The yoghurt is both the liquid phase and the acid half of the chemical leavening.

Kalburabastı

Walnut-filled dough ovals are pressed against a sieve to emboss ridges, baked and soaked in syrup. The name comes straight from that gesture.

Yoghurt syrup cake

A pale tray bake cut into squares or diamonds and drenched in cold syrup. It looks like revani but is made with flour rather than semolina, and the yoghurt is genuinely in the batter.

Kayseri, Trakya

Preserving & fermentation 1

Tarhana

A winter store made by fermenting, drying and milling a dough of flour, yoghurt, vegetables and spices. One of the few doubly fermented cereal-dairy composites in the world: both lactic acid bacteria and yeasts are at work.

Uşak, Kastamonu, Kahramanmaraş

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