Evaluation of the Quantitative and Qualitative Characteristics of Gluten-free Chicken Nuggets Containing Quinoa Flour and Hydroxypropyl Methyl Cellulose (HPMC)

Celiac disease is one of the most common digestive disorder. Chicken nugget is one of the most popular instant and ready-to-eat foods, and wheat flour is one of its main coating ingredients, which contains approximately 60% gluten. Quinoa is a gluten-free grain, as a good source of dietary fiber, has various applications in the meat products processing system as a stabilizer, fat substitute, structural components, etc. The addition of hydrocolloids also helps to improve the rheological properties of gluten-free products. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effect of quinoa-corn mixed flour in the preparation of nugget batter as a gluten-free combination as an alternative to wheat flour, and also to investigate the effect of adding HPMC hydrocolloid on the final product characteristics. In this research, a rotatable central composite design was used to investigate the effect of two independent variables including different proportions of quinoa-corn flour (0-100, 50-50, 100-0%) and different levels of hydrocolloid (0.5-1-1.5%) on the quality characteristics of nugget. With the increase of quinoa replacement level, moisture content (0.60), batter pick up (138) and redness level 5.5 (a*) increased, and oil content (11), hardness (7.5), brightness level 41(L*), yellowness level 20(b*) decreased. The increase of HPMC also caused an increase in moisture content (0.59), brightness level (L*) of 0.39, batter pick up (137) and decrease in oil content (10) and hardness (7). Optimum conditions for the production of gluten-free nugget were determined by considering the optimal amounts for the production of high quality and healthy products, contained 90% quinoa and HPMC at a level of about 1%. 

 Corn flour was purchased from the pilot of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. The de-saponified quinoa was prepared from Kashmir and then ground. In order to make the grains more uniform, both flours were sieved using a 30 mesh. Hydrocolloid hydroxypropyl methylcellulose was also prepared from Kian Shimi Mashhad. Oyla frying oil was used for frying the samples.The chicken nugget formulation was a mixture of 86% minced chicken, 10% onion, 1.5% garlic powder, 1% salt and 1.5% pepper. After complete mixing, these materials were poured into a freezer bag until a homogeneous and uniform mixture was obtained, and they were flatted until they reached the desired thickness (1 cm). Plastics containing chicken paste were stored in the freezer for 2 hours to facilitate cutting. Then molding was done with a circular mold with a diameter of 4 cm (Dehghan Nasiri et al., 2012).The batter formulation consisted of flour, water, baking powder, salt and hydrocolloids. In order to investigate the effect of quinoa and corn flours, and hydrocolloids, these substances were added to nugget water paste in different percentages (quinoa-corn ratio: 0-100, 50-50, 0-100 and hydrocolloids at the level of 1-1 / 5 -0.5%) and then mixed with water by mixer for 1 minute. The molded samples were first coated with flour and then immersed in the batter for 60 seconds and dripped for 30 seconds. Finally, deep frying was performed in the fryer at 170 ° C for 3.5 minutes. The fried samples were taken out of the fryer basket and the excess oil on the surface of the nuggets was removed with absorbent paper. The oil was changed after twice frying. After cooling the samples at room temperature, the tests such as moisture content, oil content, texture (hardness), color, batter pick up, peroxide and overall acceptance were performed.In this study, Design Expert 10.0.7 software and a rotatable central composite design to investigate the effect of two independent variables including different ratios of quinoa-corn flour (0-100, 50-50, 0-100%) and hydrocolloid (0.5-1-1.5%), Was used on the quality characteristics of the nugget. Finally, different models were fitted to the data obtained from the experiments and the best model was selected according to the results of analysis of variance. 

With increasing quinoa replacement level, moisture content, redness (a*) and pH increased and oil content, batter pick up, texture (hardness), brightness (L*), yellowness (b*) and cooking loss decreased. Increasing the HPMC also increased the moisture content, brightness (L*), cooking loss, batter pick up, and decreased oil content and hardness. Optimum condition for production of gluten-free chicken nuggets, considering the appropriate properties was found to be 90% quinoa flour and 1% HPMC. 

 In general, it can be concluded that the addition of quinoa and HPMC leads to the production of high quality products with high moisture and low oil content and high nutritional value.