Noodles are popularly consumed in many Asian countries because of their simple preparation process, low price, and easy, fast cooking.
There are regional preferences for color, size, shape, texture, and flavor of noodles, (Dick and Matsuo, 1988).
Texture and color are generally considered as the most important quality parameters of noodles. Both starch and protein mainly govern the textural properties of noodles.
The purpose of this study were to investigate how flour characteristics can affect noodle quality and evaluate alternative noodle making and noodle storage conditions in order to prolong their shelf life. The approach was made through the following specific objectives: (1) to measure proximate composition of raw noodles; (2) to evaluate texture properties of raw noodles and cooked noodles; (3) to evaluate cooked noodles texture changes after storage; (4) to evaluate cooked noodles texture storage at different temperatures; (5) to measure noodle dough color by instrumental method; (6) to evaluate ethanol as anti-microbial agent, including ethanol application through the use of slow release sachets of ethanol.
Seven commercial noodle flour samples were used in this study; Waxy, Weak, Middle, Semi-Strong, Strong, Semolina and Super-Strong.
Hardness, Fracturability, Toughness and Pliability were evaluated as textural properties in raw and cooked noodles. Except for Fracturability, the other textural properties showed an inverse profile between raw and cooked noodles.
Texture Properties of Cooked Noodles from Different Storage Conditions: 25ºC ,24h; 5ºC,24h and –30ºC,24h; were evaluated. In general, the samples exhibited a consistent decrease in hardness, toughness and pliability, however, fracturability showed higher values. However is noticeable that –30°C is the storage temperature that less affected texture attributes respect the sample control.
Color of noodles is mainly controlled by characteristics of wheat flour. According to bibliography (Oh et al, 1985), high protein noodles could reflected less light. As expected results, noodle sheets showed a negative relationship between L* and W values and protein content.
Respect a preservation test of Raw Noodles, a clear effect of slow release sachets of ethanol as anti-microbial agent for fresh noodles storage was found.
At this point, we studied how flour characteristics affect noodle quality.
Further work should be done respect to how starch and water absorption influence noodle properties.