. Pasta cooking quality and textural characteristics, such as
firmness, are determined by the physical competition between
protein coagulation in a continuous network and starch swelling
with exudate losses during cooking. If the former prevails, starch
particles are trapped in the network alveoli promoting firmness of
cooked pasta; whereas if the latter prevails, the protein coagulates
in discrete masses lacking a continuous framework and consequently
pasta will show softness and usually stickiness