Investigation of the Use of Lentil Flour in the Production of Extruded Noodles
Project no. 20751 · Status: Kapanmış · 2019
Summary
<p>With the change in technology and living standards, the interest in easy-to-prepare healthy foods is increasing day by day. Noodles are consumed frequently both in Turkey and the world with their ease of cooking, reasonable price, and long shelf life. There is a need for studies to examine the use of foods rich in components such as protein, dietary fiber, and antioxidants in noodle production to develop noodles that are poor in terms of nutrient content. For this purpose, red lentils containing high protein, dietary fiber, and antioxidants were selected and mixed with potato starch in different ratios (90:10, 80:20, 70:30, and 60:40) to produce instant noodles. In addition, noodle production was made also with the introduction of 2% guar gum to examine the impact on noodle quality. The extrusion technique has been used for the production of instant noodles because of its low cost and high efficiency. The cooking properties, color values, texture properties, expansion ratio, bulk density, water absorption index, water solubility index, and surface microstructure of the noodles were determined. With the increase of the lentil flour ratio in the formulation, the cooking time, <em>L*</em> value, and expansion ratio decreased; cooking loss, water absorption, a* value, and bulk density increased. It was determined that the hardness values of the noodles were 2220.72-4391.67 g and the addition of lentil flour and guar gum did not have a significant effect on flexibility. The stickiness values of the noodles varied between 0.54-0.78. When the microstructure of the instant noodles was examined, it was determined that the addition of guar gum was effective on the roughness of the samples and the roughness values increased. With the addition of lentil flour to the formulation, the resistance of the mixtures against pasting increased and the peak viscosity values decreased. The breakdown viscosity and final viscosity values decreased with the increase of lentil flour. In addition, the noodle with a ratio of 80:20 showed the best quality characteristics. With this study, it has been proven that noodle production with high nutritional content and added value can contribute to healthy functional food diversity.</p>