Use of microwave heating to control the degree of starch gelatinization in noodles

In this work, to reduce the cooking time of the noodles, a partially gelatinized noodle strain was produced by making pre-heated dough using a microwave oven. When a cylindrical piece of dough was continually heated using a 150 W microwave oven at 2450 MHz, starch granules in the dough did not gelatinize even though the temperature at the surface region of the dough reached the gelatinization temperature. In addition to this, it was observed that the sample hardened as the heating proceeded. Subsequently, the dough was intermittently heated using the same microwave to allow the starch granules at the surface region of the dough to gelatinize sufficiently. The temperature at the surface region was maintained at below 75 °C from the gelatinization temperature. Using this pre-heat-treated dough, a partially gelatinized noodle was produced. The rate of water uptake at 100 °C of the partially gelatinized noodle was faster than that of the ungelatinized (non-treated) noodle.