Preparation of porous-structured flat potato starch noodles with gelatin for shortening cooking time

Although dried flat starch noodles have been widely popular in Asian countries, the problem of long rehydration time needs to be solved. In this study, dried flat potato starch noodles with porous structure were constructed by adding gelatin to shorten the cooking time. Compared with pure flat potato starch noodles, the rehydration time of the dried flat potato starch noodles supplemented with 15% gelatin was reduced by 50.38%, from 11.75 ± 0.18 min to 5.83 ± 0.21 min. The results of scanning electron microscopy showed that the pore number of dried flat potato starch noodles increased with an increase in gelatin concentration, and the average diameter of pores ranged from 80.56 μm to 273.64 μm. The results of small-angle X-ray scattering showed that the mass fractal dimension value decreased from 1.769 (control noodles) to 1.308 (noodles with 20% gelatin), indicating that the starch aggregate structure was loosened due to the addition of gelatin. This loose structure was conducive to the diffusion of water in the cooking process of dried flat potato starch noodles. These findings indicated that the addition of gelatin, especially at the appropriate concentration, is effective in improving the cooking quality of noodles.