Pasta Texture: Get It Right The First Time

By Brookfield Engineering Laboratories, Inc.

Pasta is generally made from unleavened dough of durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L.) or from flour of other grains and cereals. Across different regions around the world, pasta is a well known staple food with different regions having diverse textural preferences. As such, obtaining the right texture for both the dry and cooked pasta is necessary in order to meet the market demands.

Cooked pasta has key primary textural properties that will determine the overall quality of the pasta and dominate in influencing consumer acceptance. These textural qualities are namely pasta firmness, a lack of a sticky surface, and elasticity. Achieving such textural properties requires consideration of the raw material quality (e.g., durum wheat), processing methods, and quality of ingredients used (recipes). The quality of the raw material for instance, has a profound effect on the cooked pasta quality as the storage proteins of the wheat endosperm (namely glutenin and gliadin) are the main determinants of the dough properties. Glutenin is a polymeric protein responsible for the elasticity of the dough whereas gliadin is a monomeric protein responsible for the extensibility-related properties of the dough. Furthermore, the ratio of glutenin to gliadin is directly related to dough strength and extensibility (Wrigley et al., 2006) as the interaction of glutenin with gliadin via the generation of disulphide bonds, forms a gluten network that gives rise to the cohesive and visco-elastic matrix of the dough. These intermolecular bonds trap starch granules in the pasta during the cooking process thus, reducing the loss of solids into the cooking water. The result is a reduced surface stickiness and the pasta is able to hold its shape (firmness) when cooking. Worth mentioning are other factors such as starches, non-starch polysaccharides, and non-gluten proteins that also play a role to some extent in pasta texture.