Enhancing Textural, Cooking and Aroma Attributes of Dried Yellow Alkaline Noodles Through Strategic Ingredient and Process Adjustments

Abstract

To address the issue of soup turbidity in yellow alkaline dried noodles after cooking, this study examined the mechanisms of quality formation and control strategies from two perspectives: materials (flour, salt, and alkali) and processes (mixing method, water addition during mixing, and resting time). The results indicated that high-gluten flour had a higher gluten content but inferior gluten quality, as evidenced by lower stability time, gluten index, and farinograph quality number compared to low and medium gluten flours. However, high-gluten flour contributed to the production of noodles with greater hardness, tensile strength, and tensile displacement, while also reducing cooking loss at elevated alkali levels. Increased salt addition was found to decrease cooking loss, whereas the addition of alkali had the opposite effect. To achieve a high relative content of mainly characteristic volatile compound (hexanal), the alkali addition should exceed 0.4%, with optimal performance observed at 0.8%. Moreover, increasing the water content during mixing significantly reduced cooking loss but adversely affected the textural properties of the noodles. Noodles prepared using vacuum mixing exhibited a hardness that was 6.67% greater than those prepared by normal mixing. Extending the dough resting time to 30 min further reduced cooking loss by 2.02%. Considering textural properties, cooking loss, and volatile compounds, the optimal production conditions for yellow alkaline dried noodles were identified to be: high gluten flour, 2% NaCl, 0.8% Na₂CO₃, 35% water, vacuum mixing, and a resting period of 30 min. Under these conditions, the cooking loss was measured at 8.63% (±0.16, p < 0.05).