Development and Quality Assessment of Ready-to-Cook Mixed Dal Powder

The pace of modern life of dwellers in big cities worldwide increases the demand for fast food or ready-to-cook meals. Dal curry is a common and popular meal item in Bangladesh, but its long cooking time needs to be reduced to satisfy consumer’s needs. So, this study is aimed at developing and analyzing ready-to-cook mixed dal powder. Samples were prepared with 100% lentil (control), 25% green gram with 75% lentil (S1), 25% black gram with 75% lentil (S2), and 50% of both dal in 1 : 1 ratio with 50% lentil (S3). Compared to mixed dal powder (8 minutes), the lentil dal powder took less cooking time (7.29 minutes). Mixed dal had no significant effect (p>0.05) on moisture, fat, and ash but affected on protein content. All mixed dal powder samples showed a higher protein content as well as amino acids such as alanine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine, and tyrosine compared to the control. In contrast, the control showed the highest amount of arginine, glycine, lysine, proline, serine, and threonine. Control sample showed the highest loose bulk density (0.828 g/ml), tapped bulk density (0.905 g/ml), water absorption index (5.160 g/g), and water solubility index (24.410 g/100 g) than mixed samples. The color was influenced significantly by adding different pulses variety. The flowability of each sample was excellent, as Carr’s index (CI) and Hausner ratio (HR) for all samples were within 0-10% and 1.00-1.11, respectively. Although no significant differences were found, the sample with 50% lentil, 25% green gram, and 25% black gram secured the highest score in overall acceptability. Samples’ total viable count was assessed for up to 6 months, where the values were within the acceptable limit.