Effect of maize based composite flour noodles on functional, sensory, nutritional and storage quality

To explore the feasibility of utilization of maize flour in noodle preparation, eight different combinations (T1 to T8) with varied amount of maize flour (MF), refined wheat flour (RWF), rice flour (RF), wheat gluten (WG), soya protein isolate (SPI), kansui (Sodium Carbonates), potato starch (PS) were extruded to standardize good quality noodles. Among various combinations tested, the combination T5 (50 %MF + 30 %RWF + 10 %SPI + 7 %RF + 3 %WG) was rated the best for appearance (8.3) colour (8.25) taste (8.5) elasticity (8.3) with an overall acceptability of 8.2 on a nine point hedonic rating sensory scale. There was no significant difference in normal noodle (NN) and Quality protein maize (QPM) noodle (QN) for T5 with respect to sensory characteristics when compared to control noodle (CN) prepared out of refined wheat flour. The cooked yield was more for maize based noodle (234 g NN and 220 g QN) with lower cooking loss of 7.80 and 7.76 respectively for NN & QN. The nutritional composition of maize noodles revealed that addition of 10 % soya protein isolate had increased the protein content of noodles to the tune of 16.6 and 12.7 % in QN and NN respectively. The soluble (3.18NN, 3.76QN) and insoluble fiber (21.67NN, 21.87QN) contents of both NN & QN was significantly more compared to CN (0.15 and 9.3 g).There was non- significant increase in moisture and peroxide values up to 3 months of storage with high overall acceptable sensory scores (4.0, 4.1, & 4.2 respectively for NN, QN and CN but beyond third month of storage the increase was significant. However the noodles were within the acceptable range up to 6 months of storage with an overall acceptability score of 3.0, 3.4 and 3.2 for NN, QN and CN respectively on a five point hedonic scale.