4. Conclusions.
In this study, steam cooking was employed in the frozen cooked noodles production. Both control and white salted noodles showed better cooking and textural properties after 3 min of steaming From the view of microstructure, the better associations between protein matrix and starch on the surfaces were obtained for the treated noodles. Reduction in sDSEP indicated gluten pro tein aggregated during steaming. In addition, starch of noodles underwent significant (P<o.05) changes according to RVA viscosities and DSC values. All these changes indicated at limiting water conditions gluten protein polymerized and starch gelati nized, and the resulting structure accounted for improved quality of frozen cooked noodles. However, yellow alkaline noodles exhibited improved textural properties but higher cooking loss, which was attributed to the addition of sodium carbonate. It affected the transformations of protein and starch during steaming, resulting in an incompact and uneven surface. Thus, it is not suitable for yellow alkaline noodles to improve the quality by steam pretreatment in frozen cooked noodles production.