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

IntroductionCeliac 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%. Materials and Methods 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 fo