Malic acid
Also written malic, malic and citric acids
Quick answer
The rounder, slower sourness of apples and stone fruit — the acid that makes a souring spice taste fruity rather than merely sour.
What it does
Malic acid is sour with a delay and a tail: it builds more slowly than citric acid, sits in the mouth longer, and carries a distinctly fruity, apple-like quality. Where citric reads as a squeeze of lemon, malic reads as a bite of green apple. Its presence is why sumac and barberry taste of fruit as well as of acid, and why a dish soured with either has a body that the same dish soured with lemon juice does not.
How it behaves when cooked
Four properties of the molecule, and what they mean at the stove.
- Volatility
- low
- Fat solubility
- low
- Water solubility
- high
- Heat stability
- high
It behaves as citric acid does in the pan — water-soluble, stable, non-volatile — and the useful difference is in when the sourness registers rather than in how it survives. Because malic acid is slower and longer, a dish soured with a malic-dominant spice can be tasted, judged to need more, and over-soured before the first addition has fully arrived. The practical rule is to add sumac, barberry or anardana and then wait before adjusting, which is not advice anyone gives about lemon juice. Its persistence also means it stands up to being scattered over a finished dish, which is exactly how sumac is used.
Spices that carry it
Recorded on the compound rather than on each spice, so the two cannot disagree.
Not to be confused with
Compounds a reader is likely to take for this one, and why they differ.
Citric acid
The pair, and the comparison that makes both records worth having: sharp and brief against round and lingering.
Questions this page answers
- what is malic acid
- what does malic acid do
- which spices contain malic acid