Textural changes of gluten-free pastas during cooking and cooking quality evaluation

Pasta products made from composite flours containing neither durum nor soft wheat are highly demanded by people suffering from celiac disease. The textural quality of cooked pasta is one of the main criteria that determine consumer acceptance. The aim of this study was to evaluate textural changes of four gluten-free (GF) pastas made from either rice (100%) or rice and amaranth (75:25%) under different heat treatments and semolina pasta (control) during cooking and compare their cooking quality. The firmness and cooking quality evaluations were ndertaken according to the AACC methods. Firmness changes of pasta during cooking were measured with a texture analyzer. The cooking quality was evaluated by weight increase, solid loss into the cooking water, and texture analysis. Pasta firmness decreased with cooking time and the rate of reduction varied with the pasta sample. The optimum cooking times for GF pastas were 1–3 min higher than that of the control pasta. The percentage of weight increase during cooking was higher for the control pasta (102.7) than for pastas 1, 2, and 3 (around 70%), and the lower percentage was for pasta 4 (57.4). Solid loss (%) among the GF pastas were comparable (p < 0.05), but at least 5.6 times that of control pasta. All GF pastas optimally cooked showed firmness values similar to those of control, but pasta 3 presented the lower firmness value compared with the other GF pastas. The GF pastas evaluated in this study were of lower quality than control, but GF pastas could be rather acceptable if compared with other commercial GF pastas.