Asian noodles: Revisiting Peleg’s analysis for presenting stress relaxation data in soft solid foods

Abstract

A new procedure for describing and discriminating the stress relaxation behaviour of soft solid foods was investigated using yellow alkaline noodles (YAN) as a model system. YAN were prepared from Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS), Canada Western Hard White Spring (CWHWS) and Canada Western Amber Durum (CWAD) wheat flours (∼74% milling yield) using a 1% w/w kansui solution. Analysis of normalized stress relaxation data on cooked alkaline noodles using a method based on the Wiechert mechanical model revealed that the new parameters S ∗, area under the curve, and P ∗, the residual stress after long relaxation times, were more effective discriminators of stress relaxation behaviour than Peleg’s k 1 and k 2 parameters. Yellow alkaline noodles made from CWRS and CWAD wheat flour had significantly more elastic-like behaviour ( S ∗ = 0.691 and 0.700, and P ∗ = 0.629 and 0.638, respectively) than noodles made from CWHWS ( S ∗ = 0.673 and P ∗ = 0.600).