Mild steam treatment: Enhancing the rehydration performance of instant rice noodles by changing the physicochemical properties and gel structure of rice starch

The “instant” quality of instant rice noodles is significantly affected by slow rehydration during cooking. This happens as a result of the native rice starch's low ability to gelatinize as well as the high shear and pressure utilized in industries during the widely used extrusion molding process. In order to address this issue, the rice flour was pretreated with mild steam (MS) technology. The results revealed that the rehydration qualities of the rice noodles that were extruded from the steam‐treated flour significantly improved. There was a reduction of 25.5% in the rehydration time, from 443 to 330 s. The MS‐treated rice starch's peak viscosity increased to 4503 from 4044 mPa/s. Decreases in gelatinization enthalpy (ΔH) and short‐range ordering also suggest a reduction in difficulty in accomplishing starch gelatinization. Scanning electron microscopy studies showed particle aggregation increased as the treatment duration lasted longer. In conclusion, our findings indicate that we successfully addressed the issue of slow rehydration in instant rice noodles while presenting a novel approach for their manufacturing in the manufacturing sector.