Plant-based bigel based on chickpea-potato protein hydrogel and glycerol monostearate oleogel

The current research examines the effect of transglutaminase (TG) addition on novel bigel formulation based on a mixture of a chickpea-potato protein hydrogel and a glycerol monostearate (GMS)-oleogel processed using a hot emulsification procedure. Enzyme addition led to an increase in hardness and storage modulus values while similar melting behavior was found for both bigels with the main peak between 53-55 °C resulting from the GMS-oleogel melting. TGA thermograms of both bigels exhibited similar four weight-loss regions, with the control bigel having higher amount of bound water (~56%) compared to the TG-crosslinked bigel (~50%), which can be related to the higher stickiness of the control bigel. Confocal and cryo-HR-SEM imaging revealed the formation of a chickpea/potato protein network embedded with GMS oleogel droplets. Upon cooking, both bigels had crispy orange-brown surface with higher hardness and moderate browning due to the Maillard reaction.