Background: Professional pasta cookers are filled with fresh water. The solids leached from the cooked pasta make pasta less firm and stickier while leading to changes in water properties and overflow. Added fresh water then has to be reheated. The effect of continuous cooking on cooked pasta quality and water properties was investigated for the first time by simulating professional pasta cooking on a laboratory scale.
Results: Continuous cooking procedure of 12 batches led to a solid content of cooking water of 37 g kg−1 , resulting in an increase in shear-thinning behaviour and consistency index. Pasta cooking loss decreased from 52.7 to 35.7 g kg−1 due to the lower water concentration gradient through the pasta. This was confirmed by a decrease in swelling index from 2.0 × 10−3 to 1.6 × 10−3 g kg−1 during the optimal cooking time (13 min 45 s). Surprisingly, continuous cooking made the pasta firmer while stickiness did not differ significantly (P > 0.05).
Conclusion: Taking batch number 7 as the acceptability threshold, further studies are required to find an optimal solution for retaining cooking water properties highly affecting daily cooking procedures in food service kitchens.
Keywords: continuous cooking; cooking water; food service; spaghetti quality.