Quality improvement of dough and fresh pasta made by farina using hydroxypropyl cellulose

Department of Food Science and Technology, School of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, I. R. Iran In order to produce high quality pasta, semolina; the durum wheat flour, is generally used. However, semolina is not available for every pasta factories in Iran. Hence, many of these factories use bread wheat flour (farina) to produce pasta. Consequently, the pasta may be of low quality and not suitable for export. The objectives of this study is to improve the quality of dough and the resultant spaghetti produced from farina using 0.5% (w/w, flour basis) hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC). After preparation of dough with moisture content of 31.5%, the rheological properties of the dough were tested using Brabender Farinograph. The results showed that addition of HPC increased the dough development and stability times. The results of creep test (using Texture Analyser) revealed that addition of HPC increased the elasticity of the dough while its viscosity decreased. The results of cooking tests in distilled and salted water (2% w/w) showed that the HPC sample had longer optimum cooking time. Moreover, the HPC sample had higher water absorption and lower cooking loss than the control. Addition of HPC could improve the texture of the cooked spaghetti. Addition of salt to the cooking water increased both water absorption and cooking loss of the samples.