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Asian Salted Noodle Quality: Impact of Amylose Content Adjustments Using Waxy Wheat Flour¹

¹Presented at the AACC 86th Annual Meeting, October 2001. A joint contribution of the University of Nebraska Agriculture Research Division and the United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service as Journal Series Paper No. 13818. ²Postdoctoral research associate and professor, respectively, Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0919. ³Corresponding author. E-mail: djackson1@unl.edu. Fax: 402-472-1693. ⁴USDA-ARS, 362C Plant Science Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0915. Names are necessary to report factually on available data; however, the USDA neither guarantees nor warrants the standard of the product, and the use of the name by the USDA implies no approval of the product to the exclusion of others that may also be suitable. ⁵Professor, Department of Biometry, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0712.

Fourteen flour blends of two natural wild-type wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) flours, ‘Nuplains’ and ‘Centura’, blended with one waxy flour sample were characterized and processed to Asian salted noodles. The flour amylose content range was <1–29%. Damaged starch contents were 10.4, 7.0, and 6.6% for the waxy wheat, Nuplains, and Centura, respectively. The waxy flour farinograph water absorption was as high as 79.5%, ≈20% higher than the wild-type flours. Because two types of starch granules (wild-type and waxy) existed in the flour blends, two peaks at 82°C (waxy) and 95°C (wild-type) were found in the RVA pasting curves. Reduced amylose content caused high flour swelling volume and power and low falling number. Significant effects of flour amylose content on noodle processing and textural (eating) qualities were found in the study. Noodle qualities, as reflected in covariate analysis, were not significantly affected by the flour blend's protein content, SDS-sedimentation volume, mixograph dough development time, or mixograph tolerance score. The absence of covariate (protein quantity and quality) effects for the food system (flour) used in this study is a very desirable design for the functional studies of starch components. The optimal flour amylose content range for Asian salted noodle products was 21–24%.