Cooking quality of commercial spaghetti: effect of the water-to-dried pasta ratio

Abstract

The consumption of two vital resources (e.g., water and energy) during home pasta cooking has so far received limited attention. The main focus of this work was to assess how the instrumental and sensory quality of cooked pasta is affected by the water-to-dried pasta ratio (WPR) using a model cooking system with three commercial brands of spaghetti. At WPR equal to 10 or 3 L/kg, the three sensory attributes of firmness, stickiness, and bulkiness, as well as the overall cooking quality, displayed no statistically significant sensitivity towards WPR. Cooked pasta water uptake, diameter, hardness at 90% deformation, and resilience were more influenced by the raw protein content of dried pasta than by WPR, while the cooking loss was regarded as approximately constant. Using the model cooking system that assured mild mixing of spaghetti to avoid their sticking during cooking, it would be possible to use 70% less cooking water and consume about 65% less electricity, the latter cutting significantly the climate change potential of home pasta cooking.